After the Nilesat signal issues Al Jazeera Sport Channel suffered today they announced theri new frequencies on Arabsat, Hotbird and Nilesat:
| Arabsat: 11585 Vertical 11881 Horizontal 12341 Horizontal 12398 Vertical |
Hotbird: Nilesat: |
12 comments June 12th, 2010
So basically there were signal issues during the South Africa VS Mexico match on all Aljazeera Sports channels on Nilesat, both the free-to-air and the subscription based channels except the HD channel which is actually on on Atlantic Bird 4A.
So that is why I did not have any issues as I was watching the HD channel, but after the match I realized that people are angry and that Aljazeera Sports announced that viewers have to switch to either arabsat or noorsat.
So what really happened?
The word going around is that Aljazeera Sports Channels has ruined the deal the Egyptians had to show 22 matches from the 64 matches of the world cup, and it is said that it cost them $120 million, so when Aljazeera Sports Channel announced that they too will be showing those 22 matches on their free-to-air channels “they” decided to cause damage to Aljazeera channels on the nilesat.
Now thats what is being said, and it seems Aljazeera Sports Channel is on the safe side here and nile sat will end up having a big problem, cause Aljazeera which already had tensions with Egypt on both the news and the sports channels will most likely be going to the court with this.
2 comments June 11th, 2010
The latest promo on MBC:
I can see the MBC network executives pulling their hair now, but no one can blame MBC, no one could have predicted this kind of chaos. Fight after fight year after year and it never ends, an actor/actress is leaving or being removed, some even being offered big bucks to move to other series !!! The fighting even reached between fans who are now in two or more teams, those who blame the director who is controlling everything now as a producer and those who accuse the actors to be troublemakers for asking more money, Yes this is the level it reached to?!
Bab El 7ara is the series that was reminding us of the beautiful old simpler times, pressing on going back to traditional values, good manners and bravery in a society that is so polluted in our current days. How can I believe the actors in their roles any more now after seeing all what is happening in behind the scenes??
Yet MBC will still be profiting hugely from “Bab Al Hara 4” this year and the 5th season next year. I believe even if MBC just show a black screen with the words “Bab El 7ara” written in Arabic on it will be enough to catch millions of gazing glued eyes.
The first two parts of “Bab El 7ara” were too good that anything coming after that would find a gigantic audience, we all know if “Bab El 7ara 3” was shown first no one would care to follow it. It is being speculated that this season is well written and will avoid amateur mistakes that happened in the third season. I guess we can only wait and see.
And here is the “Making of” segment in the MBC Morning Show:
43 comments July 24th, 2009
Again the man who wants offer the truth to the people is fought in every way possible. Leaving Dubai TV after an amazing 4 year run, where as he says he was never censored, which in my opinion is a very brave thing from Dubai TV. But then he had to leave, and after months of speculation we see him announcing on DREAM TV in the talk show “Al3ashera Masa’an” with Mona Elshazly that he is heading to London to continue producing “Qalam Rasas” for Al-Libiyah channel.
No one was enthusiastic about Al-Libiyah, yet the people wanted to listen to Hamdi Qandeel in any possible way, even if it was audio files being downloaded via the internet. But the show did start on Al-Libiyah and although there was always technical problems with the sound and color, but people watched, a huge number of audience the new born channel would never ever have dreamed of.
But problems keep following Hamdi, for unusual reasons the General Manager of Al-Libiyah channel was jailed for couple of days for reasons related to Hezbollah (don’t ask me am as clueless as you are), and since that day “Qalam Rasas” never aired. Only five episodes were aired since the comeback in March. We later knew that Al-Libiyah channel which was a private channel, was nationalized by the president of Libya Muammar Al-Qathafi.
And here the same Mona Elshazly announcing this on her show “Al3ashera Masa’an” “10 O’clock”:
Now I have been hearing that a deal is in the making between him and Al-Manar channel, funny enough, that is the TV channel of Hezbollah. Will the deal work out? Will it get cancelled few weeks later? Who knows? we shall wait and watch.
Here is the last episode of Qalam Rasas on Al-Libiyah for those who missed it:
1 comment May 8th, 2009
Who did not see that coming?? Really?!?!
During the past four years and while watching each and every episode of Qalam Rasas I always had a feeling it will get canceled the next day. Mr. Hamdi Qandeel was very brave and sometimes I believe he was too brave, he would amazingly mirror the thoughts of millions of Arabs every week, and call things as he see it.
I think the best TV show on Dubai TV since many years and for years to come is Qalam Rasas, this show was the only thing that made people forgive the shortcomings of the Arabic media, it was a great example of free speech, whenever the Arab media would get attacked for being censored to the max, Qalam Rasas was the show that gave hope to the people that having a show that reflects their views is possible even while the governments are busy creating new rules to further cripple the media.
Lets all get ready to watch Star Academy, The manager, X Factor, Super Star, Mission Fashion, Hizi Ya Nawaem, Taratata. Those shows will never get canceled whatever happens in them, as long as it makes us occupied and our time well wasted. Or maybe we can watch some Turkish drama series, Nour and Sanawat Al Daya’a were not enough apparently now each and every Arab TV station is showing a new Turkish series, tears guaranteed. And if all that does not give you the satisfaction you are longing for, there is always Rotana and Melody and Mazzika channels.
With all this high quality clean intelligent content on our TV stations who needs Qalam Rasas? We do not need to be reminded, we do not need to get informed, we have to stay in a coma.
Hamdi Qandeel always felt that this day might come, In April 2007 he mentioned that he might resign soon, but back then we assumed this was just part of his script and that he is just joking. I realized that since that moment when he talked about resigning his episodes became even more brave and outspoken and he was not afraid at all to name names, its as if he was taking full advantage of the time he has on air.
All what I can say is I wish Mr. Hamdi Qandeel good luck in his next project and that I wish he does not resign and I wish to watch him on another channel, a TV channel which would give him the space he deserves. Friday nights just wont be the same anymore.
8 comments December 26th, 2008
I wont be exaggerating at all if I say that the whole world will be watching carefully on the 4th of November 2008, wishing their favorite candidate win. The latest international polls have favored Barack Obama, and the USA polls gives him around a 12 to 13 points lead. But the race is not over, many factors play part here, McCain was down before and ended up winning the republican party nomination, then there is the Bradley Effect.
The Bradley Effect is where a white voter would say in polls he would vote to the African-American candidate but when voting in the voting booth he will end up voting for the other WHITE candidate, so basically racists being shy of their racism and lying to the pollsters. This happened in 1982 while electing California’s governor, Tom Bradley lost the elections although he was ahead in some polls. I do not believe that the Bradley effect happened or will happen to Obama, we already saw in the primaries how he hold close to the polls even in some places thought to be heavily racist, areas that has a very bad reputation with race discrimination.
So where will those who live in the Middle East watch the elections? Well, there is the free-to-air channels and the Subscription (PAY TV) channels.
Lets start with the PAY TV Channels:
ORBIT: The best network to watch all the action, all year long ORBIT is actually the best place to watch the American politics on their channel “ORBIT NEWS”, shows from MSNBC, NBC, ABC, PBS and BBC. In the last week of the elections since the 27 of October 2008 Orbit launched another news channel “ORBIT NEWS 2″. “ORBIT NEWS 3″ will be launched on the election day.
It has been announced that “ORBIT NEWS 1″ will feature:
While “ORBIT NEWS 2″ will feature famous political commentators from MSNBC:
ORBIT NEWS 3 will starts on the Elections day and it will air a live feed from ABC channel. It will precisely launch at 1:00 AM KSA time.
ART [Firstnet - Pehla]: Not a great choice, as ART only has FOX NEWS and SKY NEWS. FOX NEWS has the worst reputation as the most biased name in news, although ironically their slogan is “Fair & Balanced”. SKY NEWS is not bad but I doubt their coverage would be as good as CNN and MSNBC.
Showtime Arabia: Showtime is by far the worst choice, as they only provide only SKY NEWS, I am not sure though if Bloomberg & CNBC would show any coverage of the elections, if they do then you might follow it on those to FINANCIAL channels.
FREE-TO-AIR Channels:
CNN: The best source in my opinion, great panel of analysts and they have the resources to produce an astonishing full day coverage of the elections. Were very good in covering the primaries.
MBC4: If they do stick with the CBS schedule they will be one of the best channels to watch too, CBS coverage will be interesting to watch, that is if MBC4 cancels their regular schedule and stick with CBS as they have the rights to CBS News.
Aljazeera English: Really Really unbiased, am not being sarcastic this is for real, they are unbiased so much that I get bored watching it, they even cover the other candidates such as Ralph Nader and Bob Barr !! While the American mainstream media shoved them aside.
Other choices in English language: BBC World News, EuroNews, France 24, DW-TV, Russia Today, Press TV, NDTV Arabia
Other choices in Arabic language: Aljazeera Arabic, Al Arabiya, BBC Arabic, Future News, Al Aan TV, Al Ekhbariya, France 24, Rusiya Al-Yaum (Russia Today), Al Hiwar TV, Alhurra (The Free One), Nile News, NBN, ANN, CNBC Arabia (NOT SURE)
WATCH ONLINE:
It is expected that either all or some of the following channels will be streaming their election day coverage for free online: CNN, MSNBC, FOX NEWS, ABC, and CBS.
You can also watch The following channels in a very good quality via Livestation: Aljazeera English, BBC World News, BBC Arabic, Bloomberg, C-Span, DW-TV, EuroNews, France 24, ITN, Russia Today (English), Rusiya Al-Yaum (Russia Today), BBC World Service (Radio), DW-Radio.
Livestation also includes many user added channels, you can simply either search by name or check the channel list available.
Bottom Line:
We in the Middle East can’t vote, and the majority do not believe that the election is clean, seriously we all are set in thinking the US Elections is rigged, just like 2000. We do not believe that it is fair, especially that there is no equal coverage to other parties other than Democratic party and the Republican part. Most of us do not give a crap and most of us think it is just BS. But I am sure that most of people in the middle east, Arabs, Asians, Europeans, South American, Muslim and Christians will watch.
Some have watched the American elections since last year as if they are watching a reality TV show, a bit longer than American Idol I guess, and some watched it seriously following each and every article written about it. Some believe that it effects all of the world and some believe it will only affect Americans. I believe the whole world have hated the past 8 years, they hated Bush’s foreign policy and domestic policy, in the end all will watch and will wait to know who is the next president for USA hoping change come to Washington and we start seeing some difference in the way things work. Some might laugh and call it naivete, and some will call it hope.
4 comments October 30th, 2008
In my opinion Tina Fey amazingly played the role of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the accent, the voice and the style. I can bet that during the first few words no one could differentiate between them. Amy Poehler as usual played Hillary Clinton. The sketch was really funny, something I do not usually say about SNL sketches. This was the opening sketch of the premiere of SNL’s new season.
1 comment September 15th, 2008
I thought, like others, that Bab El 7ara Part 3 or Season 3 like some likes to call it, is the last one and the door will get closed. But those behind the series finds a great opportunity especially that the viewership of the third season did not decline, so now they have decided to produce two new seasons to be aired in 2009 and 2010. What does the director Bassam Al Mulla wants exactly, he wants us to see the grand grand sons of the series characters?
Bab El 7ara is getting more than it deserves, those who used to say that they wont watch the 3rd part because of 3abbas El Noori are actually watching, they want to know what happens to the other characters. If this goes on we could end up seeing Bab El7ara 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and 10, Until we reach to the current time. How long will they stretch this, I don’t blame them they found the chicken which will lay golden eggs.
21 comments September 12th, 2008
Update: 24th of July 2009: Ramadan Series 2009: Bab El Hara 4 (Video)
Update: 11th of September 2008: Bab Al-Hara gets a fourth and fifth Season.
Update: I will try my best to show Bab El7ara here.. I had couple of problems the past 5 days, will be blogging soon. MBC changed the Schedule to 11:00pm Dubai time. thats 7:00pm GMT. More to come soon.
Everybody is waiting for Bab El 7ara 3, after two successful seasons in Ramadan 2006 and 2007 MBC saw an opportunity and jumped on it. They quickly struck a deal with the producer and director of the Syrian TV drama series and even before airing the last few episodes they announced Bab El7ara 3, and quickly created promos featuring the two stars of the series. But later everybody started loosing faith in the success of the 3rd season after it was officially announced on AlArabiya channel that one of those two stars "Abbas El Noori" was not going to be in the 3rd season and his character will die on the first minute of the first episode. Fans of the show got mad and bombarded all Arabic forums showing their anger on the decision which is believed to be taken by the director although he says it was the writer’s decision.
By the end of July 2008 new teasers of Bab El 7ara started showing on MBC and by mid August longer promos aired. Those fans who did not believe the news that "Abu Essam" the character of "Abbas Elnoori" got a clear confirmation that his character is dead.
Here are ALL Promo’s that aired on MBC starting from the oldest ad to the latest one:
42 comments August 23rd, 2008
If you are a politics junkie like me or just a regular follower of news you will always try to find easier ways to access news networks. I watch a variety of channels and on different times, I watch CNN, Aljazeera English, Aljazeera Arabic, BBC World, France 24, MSNBC, Sky News, Alarabiya, and only for laughs I watch FOX News. For a while I used to use P2P programs such as TVU Networks, SOPCast, PPLIVE, PPMate and PPStream to watch various of news channels. Lately I am using LiveStation to watch some News channels, LiveStation provide high quality streaming of a number of news channels and radio news channels too.
For the time being LiveStation provides the following channels:
Some channels might not be available in your location, for example in my location “UAE” the “iTELE” channel is not available, but I guess most of them would be available. The streaming is fast and in great high quality and easy to switch between channels.
LiveStation also allows users to add channels in the website by adding the streaming URL of the channel. You also can add “user added” channels to your LiveStation channels list. Until writing this post 579 channels were added by users, you will find some of those really useful but some might not be in a good video quality like the channels officially provided by LiveStation.
1 comment August 20th, 2008
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