Schleifer, Amin Take Part in Paris Euro-Arab Satellite Colloquium

JULY 20, 2000  One of the most impressive occasions in the realm of contemporary Arab culture is the ten-day-long Biennale des Cinemas Arabes organized by and held at the Institute du Monde Arabe in Paris. In a departure from the limits imposed by its usual concerns, which have been Arab feature films and documentaries, this year’s fifth Biennale included a two-day colloquium in early July devoted to new roles, new players and new developments in the Euro-Arab satellite field—a distinction far broader than “Euro-Arab” would suggest since satellite footsteps have so enlarged and multinational content providers are so ubiquitous that nearly everyone fits into that definition.

The organizers of the colloquium invited Adham Center Senior Associate and Mass Communication Professor Dr. Hussein Amin and Center Director S. Abdallah Schleifer to present papers along with Arab and French channel heads such as Sanaa Mansour of Egypt’s space channels including Nile TV; Hassan Hamid, founder of Nile TV and now head of Egypt’s thematic channels (and an associate of the Adham Center); Muhammad Jasim Al Ali, managing director of al-Jazeera satellite channel; and the director generals of Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen and Abu Dhabi channels (all now available regionally or beyond via satellite.) The directors or managing directors of Eutelsat, CFI, TV5, AERTE/5, TPS and Eureka Audiovisuel, and a representative of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs also presented papers or staged commercial demonstrations.

Dr. Amin was the opening speaker and his paper provided the historical framework for the entire colloquium, reviewing in a survey essay “Satellite Broadcasting in the Middle East: Current Situation.” Prof. Schleifer’s “The Specialized and General Channels and the Fate of Pay TV: Economic Feasibility” was of a more specialized and issue-related nature and was delivered later in the first day of the colloquium, Schleifer serving on the same panel as Adham Center Associate and honored guest Mohammad Jasim Al Ali of al-Jazeera. Both papers were appreciated by their fellow participants and by the audience attending the colloquium, and both papers will appear in a special section of colloquium papers and interviews that will be featured in the fall 2000 issue of the Adham Center’s online journal Transnational Broadcasting Studies, which is scheduled to appear early in October and will be devoted to transnational broadcasting in the Arab world.

The colloquium also provided an opportunity for Dr. Amin and Prof. Schleifer to exchange views with the director general of the Institute, Dr. Nasr El Ansari, about future cooperation between the Institute and the Center. Prof. Schleifer, in his capacity as director of the Sony Gallery, also met with Mona Khazindar, director of the Institute’s still photography gallery, and an agreement was made in principle that the two galleries will exchange shows and co-sponsor them in the future.