Shaykh Abdallah Bin Zayed

Abu Dhabi TV

CNBC Arabiya

Al Jazeera

The Arab Media Summit:

"Arabsats? What Arabsats?" asked Humphrey Davies at the third annual Arab Media Summit held in Dubai October 7-8. Though their names were on everyone's lips, the Arab satellite channels were strangely thin on the ground at the Middle East's premier media gathering-and this, even though Shaykh Abdallah Bin Zayed and Chris Cramer, in their Speeches to the Opening Session, raised issues that touch on the Arabsats directly.

On the Margins of the Summit:

A hunt through the corridors of the summit did however yield interviews with Ali Al-Ahmed and Nart Bouran of Abu Dhabi TV, Jihad Khazen of LBC/Al Hayat, and Riz Khan, sometime CNN anchor. We also took a copy of Danny Schechter's article "Media Can Serve the Needs of Peace."

CNBC Arabiya:

CNBC Arabiya is the newest 24-hour Arab satellite channel based in the Gulf and the first dedicated to business news. Humphrey Davies reports on CNBC Arabiya—The Debut. TBS also interviewed CEO Zafar Siddiqi and Ward Edmonds, production director, and caught presenters Lina Sawan and Cyba Audi for a few moments each.

The "Al Jazeera Effect":

TBS also went to Qatar, home of the "Al Jazeera Effect" but the appointment of a new manager for the channel-with all that may imply in terms of a new sensibility and orientation-came after our visit and only days before TBS 11 was launched; see Stop Press: Al Jazeera Gets New Manager. During our visit, we interviewed editor-in-chief Ibrahim Hilal and Amr El-Kahky, an Al Jazeera reporter recently returned from Baghdad, as well as the channel's interim manager, Adnan Sharif. Earlier, TBS also talked with Al Jazeera's leading investigative reporter Yosri Fouda.

Arabsats: the Debate:

Al Jazeera and its peers of the Arabic-language 24-hour all-news satellite TV world have caused great controversy. In Arabsats: the Debate TBS presents four angles on the dreaded Arabsats: the Palestine Center's Hisham Sharabi writes of "The Political Impact of Arab Satellite Television on the Post-Iraq War Arab World," Al-Ahram's Abdel Munim Said of "The Arab Satellites-Some Necessary Observations," Foreign Affairs' Marc Lynch of "Taking Arabs Seriously," and Al Arabiya channel's Salih Al-Kallab of "The Arab Satellites-the Pros and Cons."