This article is about the Pan Arab channel. For the British channel, see Sky News. For the Australian channel, see Sky News Australia. For the defunct Irish channel, see Sky News Ireland.
The channel uses the Sky News branding, and it was launched on 6 May 2012 at 16:00 GMT. The channel's headquarters are based in Abu Dhabi and it has a network of bureaux across MENA, along with offices in London and Washington, DC. It also shares access to Sky News' wider international bureaux network.[2]
In February 2011, Nart Bouran was hired as Sky News Arabia's first director of news. Bouran was previously director of television at Reuters.[4]Yasser Thabet, former program director at the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya, joined Sky News Arabia as director of output in June 2011 and Nicholas Love was appointed as director of finance.[5]
Al-Waleed bin Talal, the second-largest shareholder in 21st Century Fox, which at the time had a 39.1% stake in BSkyB, announced in September 2011 that he would launch an Arabic-language news channel of his own (named Al-Arab News Channel).[6] The channel closed on the same day it launched.
Preparations at the network's headquarters in the twofour54 media SEZ of Abu Dhabi, began in February 2012.[7][8] It began broadcasting on 6 May 2012.[9][10]
On 8 November 2015, Sky News Arabia launched its own radio station at 90.3 FM, which was originally the home of BBC World Service in Arabic. The radio station is live-anchored and broadcasts news, weather, sports, traffic and stock market updates and political discussions in randomized blocks. Specialized segments are created specifically for morning, early afternoon, and early evening hours. Several television programmes can also be heard as well.[11]
Broadcasting
Sky News Arabia officially claims a commitment to independent reporting and avoiding partisan programming.[12] A six-person editorial advisory committee is said to exercise oversight over the network's editorial output.[12]
Sky News Arabia is broadcast to more than 50 million households in the MENA region on satellite and cable providers, as well as over the internet and mobile apps.[13][14] It is available free-to-air on Nilesat 201, Arabsat, Hot Bird and Astra.[15][16][17]
It is available in the United States, Canada, South America, Australia and New Zealand through myTV's platform.[18] It is also available on Sky Channel 788 in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Facilities
Sky News Arabia's headquarters are in Abu Dhabi's twofour54 media township. The technical integration process at the studio was carried out from April 2011 to February 2012 in collaboration with Television Systems Limited.[19]
The facility consists of one large single studio, which houses several permanent sets used for different programs. It also consists of a 10-meter-wide video wall.[19]
Content
As the channel is jointly owned with Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, concerns were raised about its editorial independence initially when it launched as well as during later geopolitical events.[2][20]
In 2017, amid the Qatar diplomatic crisis, Sky News Arabia aired an Emirati-backed documentary alleging links between Qatar's government and al-Qaeda member Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.[21] The official Qatar News Agency, which claimed to have been hacked prior to the onset of the diplomatic crisis, later filed complaints via law firm Carter-Ruck to the British media regulator Ofcom against Sky News Arabia, alongside Saudi-owned Al Arabiya, for "violating impartiality code and accuracy in news' sourcing".[22]
Following the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the channel broadcast pro-Saudi coverage which included reports, as well as statements from commentators, directed against Qatar and Turkey.[23]
References
^"Abu Dhabi's media record under scrutiny after Telegraph deal offer". Financial Times. 2024. With Britain's Telegraph Media Group in its sights, the oil-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi is closing in on its most audacious push into English-speaking media since the launch of state-owned daily The National 15 years ago.
