Arab Audience Complexities

The total population of the Arab people is, according to World Bank 2017 data, over 400 million22_{. Though they all share the same language, countries in the Arab}

world have different heritages, diverse cultures, ethnicity and religions, different histories, geographies, and even different physiognomies, but they are all described in terms of a unifying feature: the language. The Levant for example, which refers to Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Jordan, are different from the Maghreb countries, a term which refers to Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia, which make up, together with Egypt, North Africa. Even dialects differ in such a way that it is hard for someone from the Levant to understand the Moroccan or Algerian, unless they speak what is mostly close to formal Arabic.

Therefore, preferences and needs change and differ from one country to other and even from one community to other. Second, audiences’ preferences are complex and sometimes not compatible with the BBC guidelines. Throughout different events, several studies of the audience’s preferences have revealed what the audience want from media and what they expect from it.

In April 2009, the BBC Trust published a report to gauge perceptions of the Arabic TV Service. Talking to 36 opinion formers in six Arab countries, the key findings were that while viewers were looking for professionalism in news (credibility, variety, speed of news coverage, in-depth analysis), they are also looking for emotional engagement (empathy and connection with the Arabic world, affinity with presenters, more country-specific news) (BBC Trust: 2009: 9). The report concluded,

Achieving a strong emotional connection will always remain a challenge for BBC Arabic TV and may limit its mass appeal and potential reach. However, management believes that impartiality and accuracy must always take priority over emotional engagement (BBC Trust; 2009:6).

On the contrary, BBC Arabic service audience have rocketed during the ‘Arab Spring’ events, as an independent study carried out by the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ International Audience Research Program (IARP) have shown. Measuring audiences between February and July 2011, the beginning of the Arab Spring, it was found that, “overall audiences to the BBC’s Arabic services have risen by more than 50% to a record high of 33.4 million adults weekly - up from 21.6 million before the ‘Arab Spring’ “ (Media Centre; 2011).

The survey conducted in Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabic, Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco saw the largest increase of audiences’ viewership of BBC happening in Egypt. BBC said that Arabic TV viewership has risen because viewers wanted “to better understand the events happening in their own country” (Couri: 2013:1).

Since then BBC Arabic’s overall audience reach has risen by more than 11 per cent to 36.2 million adults weekly - up from 32.5 million in 2012 to 2013”, according to an audience research carried out in 201423 _{(Media Centre; 2015) . The increase in}

viewership does not necessarily entail an affinity between all Arab audiences and the channel. Rugh, explains that audiences watch different channels “even if they disagree with the editorial slant” (Heil; 2007). But according to different studies of a number of Arab audiences, viewers tend to watch or listen to channels that mainly resonate with their own beliefs and views which creates some challenges to international broadcasters.

Today, the Arab television viewer with a satellite dish has a choice of dozens of channels. But like most TV viewers around the world, the Arab television viewer tends to watch only six or seven of them in a given week. Typically, an avid Lebanese television viewer might watch Aljazeera, Al-Arabiya or Arab news network for round-the-clock coverage of news and public affairs; Middle East Broadcasting, Orbit, Arab Radio and Television or Lebanese Broadcasting Company International for entertainment including western and Arab programs;

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The Hezbollah channel al-Manar for aggressive pro-Palestinian commentary and news; plus the local TV channel for local news (Rugh; 2004a: 2)

In a highly polarised region at times of crisis, such as during the invasion of Iraq, or the Palestinian-Israeli wars audiences tend to watch channels that resonate with their views. Audiences want a deep and detailed coverage of their local ‘issues’ and their ‘stories’, with which the BBC might not always see eye to eye. Braizat and Berger (2011; 124 &136) conducted a study between 2003 and 2008 about the consumption habits of Jordanians to determine the relationship between satellite television and public opinion. They looked into three channels Aljazeera, Al-Arabiya and Jordanian National TV. The findings were that half of the population resort to the local TV for local news, while Aljazeera comes first for international news, followed by Al-Arabiya. The researchers concluded that there is a “selective bias by the audience and individuals tend to select information sources that conform to their already held beliefs (Braizat and Berger; 2011: 136).

The role attributed to Arab transnational media for creating a pan-Arab audience (Rinnawi; 2011; 163&165, Kraidy; 2002: 8), or a new Arab public opinion (Ghareeb; 2000: 396), has been reconsidered after the Arab Spring. The Syria conflict has divided the Arab world immensely, and that was reflected in the choice of media for information. Shibley Telhami’s decade long polls in Lebanon to measure Aljazeera viewership showed that preferences vary according to sectarian lines. In 2006, for example, just prior to the 2006 Lebanon-Israel war, 43 per cent of Lebanese Shiites, 33 per cent of Sunnis, 25 per cent of Druze, and 16 per cent of Christians, identified Al Jazeera as their first choice. By 2011, with Al Jazeera seen to be taking sides in favour of Sunnis, only 7 per cent of Shiites identified it as their first choice for news (Telhami; 2013: 4). The changes in the Arab audiences’ preferences could play in favour of BBCA’s relationship with them, but as Cull argues it might just be that their interests overlap with that of the government (Cull; 2009).