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Shooting for
Street Pulse
and it has come a long way.
In the early days we had a hard
time even getting guests to come
on, now it is quite the opposite. We
have had very interesting
discussions on our talk shows
when we have had representatives
from Israel or even Iran for that
matter, Saudi Arabia, and mixed
them together in a way that a lot of
stations don’t. But there is still
some word of mouth out there that
serves as a hurdle for getting some
people to watch. We are the
American channel, the American
perspective, we don’t run from that,
we think in some regards it is
actually a selling point: people do
want the American perspective
even though they frequently don’t
like American policy to some of
these countries in the Middle East.
The issue of whether or not the US
should suspend aid to Egypt after
the change in government was a
very interesting one because people
hold a lot of different viewpoints in
America, and viewers would not
have gotten all those different
points of view from the local
channels or even the pan‐Arab
channels.
Was the 2011 Egyptian revolution a
turning point?
It was. The other channels’ bias was
so obvious, be it a local channel or
be it a pan‐Arab channel. We did
not have that bias. When there is a
crisis and you really want to know
what is going on you will be more
inclined to go to a channel that
gives you the story straight. And
that I think is what happened to us,
our audience increased to 25%
during that period of time.
You have to realise that you
cannot attract viewers based on a
certain event and not have the goods
to back it up on a regular basis. So
we are constantly going through
this process of re‐evaluating our
programming as audience
preferences change. And they have
changed quite a bit ‐ they want to
know what is happening in their
backyard and that really is a
challenge for us and all pan‐Arab
channels. One of the approaches we
are taking is to develop more
localised content and place it on
our pan‐Arab programme schedule
but at a time and in a way that
makes sense.
You also have Alhurra-Iraq - what
impact is that having?
We think it’s probably of all our
countries where we have made the
most impact. You have got to go
back to its launch in 2004 when
there was really no reliable media
at all, and people saw it as a
channel by Iraqis for Iraqis in Iraqi
dialect. We have a significant
presence in Baghdad and
elsewhere, we get into very local
issues – about 35% of content is
Iraq‐specific and that includes most
of the primetime schedule.
We were there at the right time
in the right place and we had the
right content and that has largely
continued, we are very strong.
There are many more channels now
but they all seem to represent some
person or sectarian point of view
and people see that immediately.
So there really has not been a
competitor to us for that middle
ground.
Our 8 o’clock Iraqi time newscast
is the one to watch if you want to
know what is really going on in
Iraq. It has a huge following. We
have had the prime minister on, the
vice president on, we have covered
the Kurdistan part of Iraq heavily
and we are very involved in the
election coverage even at the
parliamentarian level and people
appreciate this. So we consider that
a real success story, in fact we
would like to replicate that in some
of our other countries if we would
ever get the funding for it.
What will we see in your
anniversary year?
Well, we always have plans for
expansion but it is another issue to
get new channels funded in such a
difficult financial environment.
What we will continue to do is to
add and delete from our schedule
and modify our shows to attract
new viewers ‐ for example we think
we can do more to attract women
and youth. There is a youth bulge
coming up ‐ to reach that segment
of the population we are now
developing original content for our
websites and are very active on
Facebook where our news has 3m
followers.
Because the environment that we
broadcast to is so diverse from
Casablanca to Baghdad it is hard to
make everyone aware of this channel
and its unique offerings, it takes
money. If we could find a cost‐
effective way to get the word out to
the entire region that we exist and
that there are shows in this channel
that you would benefit from that
would be the best birthday present.
Brian Conniff, thank you.
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From top
Alhurra
correspondent
Khaled Khairy
reporting from
Rabbah Square in
Cairo; Muslim
Kandil reporting
fromTahrir
Square during
the Egyptian
Revolution;
Anchor Ahmad
Sanad
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