Al Jazeera becomes leading Mideast sports broadcaster with ART buy

According to Gulf Times, the Arabic satellite news station Al Jazeera is poised to become the largest sports broadcaster in the Arab region with its reportedly billion dollar purchase of the Arab Radio and Television (ART) network. According to the article, the deal has not yet been announced formally, but it will give Al Jazeera exclusive rights that will likely see it become the leading sports network in the region. Last week, the UAE daily the National reported that the head of ART's public relations Nawaf Tamimi, said there was no rights deal, following press reports claiming ART had sold its extensive library to Al Jazeera Sports channel. "Rumors have been swirling around the Middle East media water cooler for a while now that the two pay-TV players that weren't a part of this summer's merger between Orbit and Showtime -- that is, Arab Radio and Television (ART) and Al Jazeera Sports -- are up to some kind of merging of their own," writes Keach Hagey. Looks like they are, just as AJ Sports celebrates its sixth year.

Dubai Media Not-So-Free Zone

This is the notice I get when I try to access the photo-sharing site Flikr in the UAE. Or any site ending in .ir for Israel. And on a host of other sites that Emirati authorities have decided is not acceptable. And I work in Dubai Media City, a supposedly "free" zone. Apparently not a zone for free speech.

I also can't call any Israeli numbers - which of course also cuts me off from Palestinians living in Israeli occupied territories as well as business and government contacts that could be needed to ensure proper, adequate and balanced coverage.

As a journalist I need to track down information and contact details for people all over the world. Yet the Dubai authorities have decided to censor my access to information. How can they call it a Media Free Zone when in fact it is not free at all?

(I originally wrote this post on Sept. 29 but decided not to post until leaving Dubai upon the advice of friends in the media field. Given that TECOM contacted me merely one day after posting this article I am glad I waited!)

P.S. The character above is one of the four grandmothers that star in the Emirati-created cartoon Freej, which I absolutely adore! Too bad she's used for such a negative purpose...

Emirate's Airlines: the story I was forced out over

Here is the original story I posted on AlArabiya.net about Emirates Airlines that I was forced to take down. Now that I am safely out of the country I wanted people to see what the story was all about. I removed the name of the first reporter upon her request since she still works at Al Arabiya and lives in Dubai.

Now, you'll notice that we specifically did not point out the major conflict of interest in the last section and I didn't use any of the quotes pointing out that because Maktoum is the head of the Aviation Authority that his airline therefore has carte blanche to do whatever it wants. I knew this would be crossing a "red line," to highlight how incredibly ridiculous such a setup is. But the public should know if an airline is unsafe, if the authority charged with regulating airlines is unable to do so fairly and impartially. So, here you go, here's the story that I was "made redundant" over. What do you think?

Pilots say airline puts commercial considerations before safety
Emirates airlines under fire for neglecting safety
DUBAI (Courtney C. Radsch)

Emirates Airlines came under fire Sunday after pilots complained it put commercial considerations ahead of safety and said that was the reason behind a near-fatal crash in Melbourne earlier this year, a charge the airline "strongly refuted."

The unnamed pilots said they warned authorities three months before the incident about the problem of pilot fatigue and concern of inadequate crew rest facilities, Australia’s Sunday Herald Sun reported, citing documents obtained under United States Freedom of Information laws.

" Crews cannot get proper in-flight rest and suffer from fatigue and micro-sleep during the approach and landing phases on the Airbus A380 and on the A340-300 " Australian paper quotes a pilot The pilots were also concerned about scheduling, working hours and their belief management was putting commercial considerations ahead of safety, the paper said. "Crews cannot get proper in-flight rest and suffer from fatigue and micro-sleep during the approach and landing phases on the Airbus A380 and on the A340-300," the paper quoted the official complaint as saying. "There has been continuous pressure from the commercial department ... flight safety is becoming increasingly impaired," the complaint added. Emirates was hit hard by the financial crisis and recorded a loss of nearly a billion dollars last year. The airline ranks amongst the top ten in the world and has won several awards, including the largest airline in the Middle East.

Near-fatal crash " The crew of EK 407 (Melbourne-Dubai, 20 March) were allocated a 24-hour layover in Melbourne - a sufficient time period to use the rest facilities provided " Richard Vaughan Emirates airlines "strongly refuted" the report and questioned why none of the data it provided about the incident was reported in the article, which the airline blasted as "one-sided" and "based on statements from anonymous persons." "The crew of EK 407 (Melbourne-Dubai, 20 March) were allocated a 24-hour layover in Melbourne - a sufficient time period to use the rest facilities provided," Richard Vaughan, Emirates’ Divisional Senior Vice President and Commercial Operations Worldwide, said in a statement released to Al Arabiya. "When it released its preliminary report on the event, the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau indicated it had not found any evidence to suggest fatigue was a causal factor," Vaughan said, adding "Emirates reiterates its absolute commitment to safety."

" Of course it’s a problem with safety " Emirates Airline employee The incident in question happened in March when an Emirates jet narrowly escaped a fatal crash at Melbourne Airport after the captain, who had reportedly only slept for three-and-a-half hours over the past 24 hours, entered the wrong take-off weight into the plane's computer. None of the crew or staff noticed the error and the plane, which was programmed to take off with 100 tons less than the actual weight on board, dragged its tail along the runway and almost failed to get airborne with 275 people on board. Upon returning to Dubai both pilots were handed letters of resignation and the airline said it had implemented new safety measures to stop something like that from happening again.

Pilots, crew fatigued " The sad thing is that in the event of the worst happening it will be the fatigued pilots who will be in the dock, dead or alive, and not the people in management who dreamt up, approved and enforced the misguided policy " Pilot According to the Australian paper, several complaints were lodged with the American regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), three months before EK407 nearly crashed into a suburb. The FAA documents show that pilots complained to an Emirates’ senior vice president, Captain Ed Davidson, about fatigue. "I am very concerned that the commercial versus safety balance in this airline is tipping in the wrong direction," a pilot was quoted as saying in the FAA document. "The sad thing is that in the event of the worst happening it will be the fatigued pilots who will be in the dock, dead or alive, and not the people in management who dreamt up, approved and enforced the misguided policy," the pilot said. An Emirates Airline employee who requested anonymity because of concerns over job security told Al Arabiya that fatigue is problem with pilots and cabin crew, and that flight shifts are scheduled too close together. “We should take longer rests between such sectors, especially to Australia and New York and long shifts,” the employee told Al Arabiya, noting that crews often fly 14 continuous hours, such as on the Dubai-Sydney route, and the continue on another few hours to New Zealand. The employee added that the cabin crew also suffered from fatigue and are having more trouble than the flight decks. “Of course it’s a problem with safety,” the employee said.

Investigating No safety regulator, including Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), is authorized to investigate the complaints as international rules prevent broad-ranging audits of foreign airlines. But a spokesman for CASA, Peter Gibson, told the paper Australia's aviation authority had no concerns over Emirates safety and was satisfied with the airline’s response to pilot fatigue. The only organizations authorized to investigate the claims against the Dubai-based airline is the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the United Arab Emirates' General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA). The chairman of the government-owned airline, Sheik Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, is also president of the CAA and on the board of the GCAA.

Government service: not such an oxymoron at TECOM

TECOM, the Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone authority, is the government agency of Dubai responsible for the so-called "free zones" like Media City, Internet City, Knowledge Village etc. (although funnily enough it does not have a working website!). I had to go to the office for an employment issue and was so astonished by the efficiency, helpfulness and overall competency of a government department that I felt compelled to write a post. Although the office looks like the DMV of something (that is, the Department of Motor Vehicles in the US), down to the rows of windows with glowing red numbers above calling the herds to the appropriate window. People milled around as they waited their turn. But unlike going to the DMV, one of the more painful experiences in life, I actually enjoyed going to this government department! What?! First of all, the wait was super short despite all the people. Probably because the workers are competent (sorry, no offense to the competent DMV peeps out there). So anyway, we get our ticket and shortly thereafter are called to the appropriate window where I explained that I wanted to lodge a complaint. I began in Arabic out of respect for the fact that I was speaking to an Emirati, but he actually spoke English (again, how many times have you been unable to communicate with someone at the DMV). He told me I needed a copy of my passport, labor contract and a form in order to file the complaint. So I left thinking I'd have to go find an internet cafe with a printer or a Kinkos or something, when lo and behold, there was a deck of computers with free printing! What?! So I got on an filed out the form, printed it out and was going to go home to get a copy of my contract etc. I figured there was no way I could log onto my email, I mean, they already let me fill out my form online and print it. But in fact, I was able to access my email, get all the documents I needed printed out (for free!!) and file the complaint the same day. In fact, within 1 hour of finding out where and what TECOM was I had completed my task. And when I call to follow up I get a real person who has my point of contact call me back. And he remembers my name and my case. I wish the US government and its employees would take a page from TECOM's playbook. When everything else in life is turning sour and stressful, it's nice to find a ray of light in an experience one would ordinarily dread. Now TECOM just needs to get it's website activated!

Ramadan advertising a casualty of the financial downturn

Spending on advertising during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, TV’s holy grail of ratings, fell compared to last year according to industry experts, whose initial optimism about the season proved unwarranted.

The industry was hoping for a recovery during Ramadan, which is typically the biggest advertising season in the Middle East, when each day people watch TV two hours more on average and indulge in food, drink and sweets for the festive dinners that break each day’s fast.

But the Choueiri Group, the Middle East’s largest media sales representation company, said advertising spend declined during Ramadan, which this year started Aug. 21 and ended Sept. 19 in most Arab countries.

“This year, the overall scene has witnessed a drop in advertising spend,” Ghassan Harfouche, managing director of Middle East Media Services at Choueiri Group, told the Emirati daily the National. He said spending fell by 25 percent.

The Middle East, especially the Gulf, has been hard hit by the global financial crisis, which hit the real estate and financial sectors, some of the biggest advertisers during the halcyon boom days, hardest.

The fall came even though most broadcasters left rates unchanged from last year’s record rates, AdNation’s Eliot Beer told me.

“From people I’ve spoken to in the market it seems to be down, some suggest a drop of 20-30 percent overall would be about right for the TV market,” said Beer.

Many regional companies devote more than half their budgets to buying ad time during Ramadan, with TV dominating the advert buys. And the month typically accounts for about a third of annual advertising revenues for leading television broadcasters.

But the economic downturn has hit the industry hard, with initial indications showing a dramatic decline compared to the highs of 2008, though industry insiders say the region has not been hit as hard as other markets.

Michael Malkoun, regional sales director for Choueiri Group, attributed the drop to a fall off in advertising by local companies, especially those in Saudi Arabia, defying forecasts that any decline in spending would come from multinational corporations and regional advertisers.

“Which was surprising because nobody was aware or expecting that to happen, we were all expecting it from the regional side not the local side,” he told me. “They (regional advertisers) wanted to protect their market shares here, so they kept their level of spend.”

Difficulty of Predictions

The negative results contradicted early indications of a strong Ramadan advertising season that would help turnaround an industry hard hit by the implosion of the property sector.

The Pan Arab Research Center (PARC) said midway through Ramadan that preliminary data showed an increase of around 15 to 20 percent compared to 2008 and it had predicted increased advertising spending this Ramadan.

But experts note that the Middle East advertising industry is underdeveloped, saturated on some platforms and nearly absent on others, with few metrics. They say the lack of research, measurement and ratings hampers the development of a more robust industry.

“There are no proper mechanisms in place for measurements,” explained Sonia Larsen, communications director for the International Advertising Association’s United Arab Emirates chapter, the largest one in the world.

She said there are discussions about introducing people meters and other tools for audience measurement, but that they will take time to get integrated.

The Middle East accounts for only one percent of global advertising expenditure and average per capita investment in advertising is a fraction of that in Western countries, where industry averages are eight percent per capita.

Ramadan Bonanza

Advertisers appeared to have saved their budgets for “sure things,” with major broadcasters of Ramadan specials like MBC1 and Rotana attracting advertising on par with last year

“Compared to last year, sales are up 30 per cent,” Nezar Nagro, the president of Saudi-owned Rotana Media Services, said as Ramadan got underway in late August. “I think some of the clients that didn’t spend in the first half of this year, because they were worried about the recession, have now started to spend.”

The Arab Advisors Group (AAG) reported that a 30-second Ramadan spot cost $3,362 this year, though ad executives told me that so much depends on the show’s ratings and reach as well as the specific market that such averages are meaningless.

Regional heavyweight MBC Group, which boasts all of the top 10 highest rated shows, was able to sell spots for upwards of $35,000 for the top-rated Ramadan series Bab al-Hara, which reaches more than 50 percent of viewers, according to Austyn Allison, managing editor of the Dubai-based Communicate magazine.

Its Arabic flagship MBC1 boasts some of the most popular Ramadan series, and typically invests about a third of its acquisition and production budget on the channel, which returns a similar percentage, MBC Group director of marketing, PR and commercial Mazen Hayek, told me

“In Ramadan, MBC1 becomes in a league of its own when it comes to its ratings,” said Hayek. “This has led to sustained advertising on MBC 1. The levels are very close to 2008, which was by all means a record year.”

Fall from 2008 highs

Middle East advertising dropped off sharply at the end of 2008 as the world financial crisis hit the Gulf and devastated the property and financial sectors. It did not pick up as expected after the traditionally lean winter months of January and February, so the industry was looking to Ramadan to rescue its sagging fortunes.

Yet despite the global economic downturn, advertising is slightly up overall this year, with increases in several Gulf and Levant countries, according to PARC.

Regional broadcasters were the big winners this year as advertisers focus more on pan-Arab satellite stations like LBC, Fox Movies and MBC, parent company of Al Arabiya, with seven of its eight channels ranking in the top ten for ratings, according to Allison.

And these stations have seen the highest-ever ad rates, according to AAG, with rates on major channels 25 percent higher than the year before, though still low by global standards, especially considering the purchasing power of viewers in the Gulf.

Google, Facebook move up launches in Persian to help Iranian reformists

Google launched its Persian automatic translation service Friday just hours after Facebook announced a beta-version of the social networking site, because of the ongoing protests in Iran over election results that gave incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, a second term.

"We feel that launching Persian is particularly important now, given ongoing events in Iran. Like YouTube and other services, Google Translate is one more tool that Persian speakers can use to communicate directly to the world, and vice versa, increasing everyone's access to information," Franz Och, principal scientist, wrote on the company's blog.

The California-based company, which also owns the video sharing site YouTube, moved up the launch of its 42nd language in beta version as did Facebook. Och said Google was "launching this service quickly, so it may perform slowly at times," adding that it was optimized for English-Farsi translations.

Facebook, popular with reformists who used it to build support for their candidate and disseminate information after the results, announced late Thursday night that the site would be available in Farsi, allowing Iranian users to navigate in their native language.

"Since the Iranian election last week, people around the world have increasingly been sharing news and information on Facebook about the results and its aftermath," Eric Kwan, a Facebook engineer working to localize the site, wrote on Facebook's official blog.

Facebook Persian was "already in translation before worldwide attention turned to the Iranian elections, but because of the sudden increase in activity we decided to launch it sooner than planned. This means that the translation isn't perfect, but we felt it was important to help more people communicate rather than wait," said Facebook.

Google also relaxed restrictions on violent and graphic videos from the protests in Iran posted to YouTube in recognition of the critical roll user-generated content was playing in the country, where foreign media have been banned from covering the protests.

"In general, we do not allow graphic or gratuitous violence on YouTube," the company said in a statement. "However, we make exceptions for videos that have educational, documentary, or scientific value. The limitations being placed on mainstream media reporting from within Iran make it even more important that citizens in Iran be able to use YouTube to capture their experiences for the world to see."

The visas of most foreign journalists, typically granted for seven days, ran out earlier in the week and were not renewed in an attempt by the government to control coverage of the largest demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Despite media frenzy and the re-discovery of Twitter it's nothing terribly new, especially for tech savvy Iranian youth who have already created one of the most dynamic blogospheres in the world. Activists Moldova, China, Burma/Myanmar, Egypt to name but a few have all used citizen journalism tools and social media to further their cause and circumvent varying levels of government censorship and control.

But the story of anti-government protesters using new media tools - which just happen to have emerged from American companies -- fits into the framework of Iran created by the West, especially the United States, as an authoritarian religious state that needs to be reformed. So the mainstream media has amplified the voices and perspective of reformers, and largely focused on one side while offering very little examination of either pro-government rallies or pro-Ahmedinejad voters and where their voices fit in the turmoil. So actually Ahmedinejad's attempt to control coverage seems to hace backfired because I doubt that pro-government demonstrators are exerting the same amount of effort to get their perspective and images and videos out to the world public as the reformer foes.

Throughout the week, supporters of the protesters around the world had been making their own computers available as proxies to Iranians who wanted to evade government censors. These people have been publishing the IP addresses of their computers to public forums like Twitter, offering them as so-called proxy servers. continued Internet activity from Iran was a testament to the durability of the Internet and the commitment of Iranians to get their story out despite the government crackdown.

The vast majority of bloggers are young, and the youth were overwhelmingly in support of Mousavi, especially city-based affluent youth, who are also more likely to be technologically savvy with access to private Internet connections and the technical know-how to use proxy servers to get around state censorship. Thus the citizen journalism coming out of Iran is skewed by the population that is producing it, and thus an incomplete picture of sentiment in Iran. That said, youth make up some 60% of the Iranian population

The government is fighting back with the same methods. Ahmediniejad supporters have sought to infiltrate reformists online, passing themselves off as reformists while posting news and views sympathetic to the pro-government side. Users on Twitter sent out false tweets purporting to be from a Western journalist with a major network. But he told me his followers quickly surmised the tweet from persian_guy was a ploy and sent out warnings accordingly. Lists of impersonators are kept and updated for everyone to be aware of.

The Revolution will be Twittered... this time in Iran

Iranian activists successfully got Twitter to suspend a planned interruption of service today because it has become an indispensable communication tool. Twitter and the other new media applications of the day -- Facebook, Flikr, YouTube and all -- have once again become indispensable tools in the repertoires of contention of activists in a less-than-democratic country.

So when Twitter announced Monday it would temporarily suspend the service for an hour the next day it immediately spurred a wave of requests not to take away what has become a key communication and organizational tool for post-election activism. Iran has taken press credentials from foreign media and kicked them out of the country and banned their broadcasts. It shut Al Arabiya's Tehran bureau and imprisoned journalists. But it ca't stop Twitter, which works via Internet and mobile phones and is too dispersed and instantaneous and pervasive to block. So real information and images are getting out.

“@twitter Twitter is currently our ONLY way to communicate overnight news in Iran, PLEASE do not take it down,” wrote Moussavi1388, a feed with nearly 11,000 followers that serves as a virtual newsroom, providing information about protests and press conferences. People began posting tweets about the need to prevent the planned outage and shortly after 4 p.m. Monday, Tuesday morning in Iran, the company announced it would suspend the planned upgrade in acknowledgment of its role in facilitating communication in and out of Iran.

Messages with #IranElection, a tag that enables users to search for all tweets on that subject, was the most popular tag on Twitter Tuesday, with more than 70 new posts a minute coming in Tuesday night. Tehran was the second most popular.

Mosavi’s Facebook page, which lists his current position as “president” or Iran, has more than 54,000 members posting pictures and videos that are helping to document the largest protests since the 1979 Islamic revolution as well as government violence that has left at least eight activists dead.

But blogs and Twitter feeds can also be seen by governmental authorities, prompting a campaign Tuesday evening to encourage people around the world to change their profiles to help protect activists in Iran.

“Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30” read the tweets sent by hundreds of users in an effort to make it more difficult for the government to track down those blogging inside Iran.

This is certainly not the first time Twitter has helped activists organize, as I've written many posts about its use in Egypt in particular (it has also been used in Moldova, Lebanon, China, etc). But of course, my detailed research is on Egypt, so if you want to read more about how activists in the Middle East use Twitter click here!