We don't need so many TV channels

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meet with a group of fellow journalists from various Arab television channels at a restaurant in an Arab country. All of a sudden, one of the gentlemen at the table changed his seat, sat right opposite me, and started peppering me with questions.

"What do you think of my programme? Did you see the last episode? Did you like the guests? In fact, one of them was really good, but the one who was sitting on my right was not properly prepared. But in general the episode, as I was told by the producer, was great." The guy carried on like this, talking endlessly about his work. I felt really embarrassed, as this was the first time in my life I had met him.

I by no means want to criticise my colleague's work. He might be a really able presenter, and his programme could be quite interesting, but due to the huge number of Arab satellite TV channels one no longer knows what to watch, and who is who in the television industry.

Over the past decade or so, Arab society has been afflicted with what you could call 'satellite TV diarrhoea'. Hundreds of music, economic, social, cultural, tourism and religious channels have been launched haphazardly. It seems that everyone has entered the field of satellite broadcasting. It is no wonder that some cynics call it 'the business of those who can do no other business'. Many rich Arab businessmen, encouraged by the booming satellite industry, want to try their luck with television. Funnily enough, a rich butcher who owns scores of butcheries in one Arab country once applied to set up a satellite TV channel.

There is a popular saying in the Arab world: 'Let anyone who has a piastre that he does not know how to spend buy a pigeon and then let it fly'. That is exactly what many are doing as far as satellite broadcasting is concerned. It is difficult to find an Arab investor who has done a thorough feasibility study for the channel that he or she wants to launch. Sadly enough, satellite TV stations continue to proliferate.

I really like the popular Saudi comic series Tash Matash, which satirised the situation in one of its episodes. It showed a financier trying to launch a TV station on the advice of a friend. He first tries to launch a channel specialising in call-in TV contests in the hope that he will make millions from the phone calls. But he fails miserably, so he starts thinking about setting up a religious fatwa channel in the hope of making money from calls answered by religious leaders. This also fails, so he later turns to selling commercial products.

Funnily enough, most of the hundreds of Arab satellite TV channels have been launched in this manner. This is why there have been more than 500 satellite TV stations launched over the past 10 years or so. Fifty channels are shut down annually, but another 50 take their place. The Arab world has far more satellite TV channels than the US and Europe put together - they seem to breed like rats.

Of the hundreds of channels, Arab viewers tend to regularly watch just a couple of news channels, three or four music stations, two or three drama channels and a couple of religious channels - the rest are superfluous. Do we really need more than 100 music channels and more than 110 religious channels? I wonder why some of the hardly watched satellite TV stations remain on the air.

I bet that most viewers have never heard of many of the channels available, much less know who is who in the satellite broadcasting industry. In the past, viewers might have found it difficult to recognise the name of a TV presenter, but nowadays they find it difficult to keep track of all the channels. So please, my dear colleague whom I met at a restaurant, forgive me for not recognising you, or following your programme, as I have never heard of the channel you work for.

- Dr Faisal Al Qasim is a Syrian journalist based in Doha. He is also a television presenter and producer of the Opposite Direction programme on the Al Jazeera channel.

The article sends a clear message to the society. The content of most of the television channels are either film-based or below average cultural programmes which either way are not going to help the young generation. Inspite of a number of television channels, I felt watching most of them are a waste of time. The digital satellite era has opened up a new world for television viewers and does not really lead to the healthy growth for children, who spend a good amount of their time before the television sets. I too favour reducing the number of digital television channels since they are really not informative and even broadcast inappropriate serial programmes and music. This can be controlled to a great extent, either by taking action by respective governments and social-organisations too need to come forward and educate people on this. I even doubt whether Arab television programmes are truly packed with its cultural ideology and benefits the society. I spend a very little time on television, as my preference is always goes to watching news-based programmes. Let us not invest our valuable time on watching programmes of no value. Let's not encourage our children too, to do so. And for entertainment reasons, some restriction is definitely needed.
Ramachandran Nair
Ruwi,Oman
Posted: September 20, 2009, 13:04