Songs and comedy shows most popular among Arab YouTube viewers

Dubai: Arabic songs and comedy shows are the top videos Arabs watched on YouTube in 2013, according to a Google survey released on Wednesday (December 11).

“These videos show how YouTube is driving pop culture - users in the region love music and comedy Arabic content,” said Maha Abouelenein, Head of Communications for the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region at Google. “These videos are coming from channels with millions of collective subscribers, keeping viewers coming back daily.”

Maha said YouTube is viewed more than 310 million times a day by viewers in the MENA region and the numbers are growing.

“The trending videos reflect the videos that were most talked about, shared and discussed in the region - not just views,” Maha told Gulf News.

According to Google, an American technology company that operates the world’s largest search engine, one of the most watched YouTube videos in MENA is the MBC music show, “Jalasant Wanasah,” which hosts big names in the Arabic music industry, such as Kazim Al Saher, Rashed Al Majed, Nancy Ajram and Amr Diab.

Also, the video of a young Iraqi woman in the primary auditions of Arab idol was heavily watched on YouTube. It was watched by nearly 8.2 million viewers.
As for comedy shows, the Saudi satire “Eysh Elly” tapped more than a million subscribers, “making it one of the most watched shows on YouTube in MENA,” Google said. The Egyptian “Bernameg” of Bassem Youssef, the cardiac surgeon who became a host of his own satirical talk show, is also on the list after it gained some 5 million viewers in the first three months.

The animated, socio-political short talk produced by the Amman-based “kharabeesh” entertainment media network is getting on average 27 million viewers a month, said Mohammad Asfour, CEO OF Kharabeesh, which publishes its production online.

Speaking to Gulf News, he said more people are following YouTube because “first is the short script. Ten, or five or three minutes will do the job, so the viewer will get the content in a short period of time…the second is the freedom of speech on line,” he said in reference to the wider boundaries online content have when compared with published material or content aired on TV channels and radio stations.

The high internet penetration and the spread of Mobile and tablets usage across the MENA region had helped the growing viewership of online content, he added.
Kharabeesh also posts videos with a social message.

A short video titled “What do you know of the flying flip-flop?” carries a message to stop domestic violence against children, which it says it affecting 300 million children around the world. The 2 minutes and 55 seconds video got some 1.7 million viewers.