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.
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.
Did they, USA, think that this stupid move will work?! Creating a news channel in the Middle East and publicly announcing that it is backed by the government of USA, actually the U.S. government spent $350 dollars from taxpayers on this project, if they just asked, they would have known that this project is simply not going to work. The funny thing is that they thought they will be spreading democracy in the Middle East through such a channel.
So although here in the Middle East we know for a fact that its a flop, you know there in U.S. they love surveys and polls, so a new survey done in six countries in the Middle East stated that only two percent tune to the channel as a first choice for news source.
“Arabs sit in their homes in front of the television, and they surf like crazy,” said Hisham Melhem, a Washington-based anchor for al-Arabiya. “You rarely find someone who says they watch al-Hurra. It may be number 10 on their dial. But definitely not first, not second, not third, not fourth.”
It seems that Rotana found that the Arab World is lacking in Movie Channels and/or we are not watching enough movies. So they felt the desperate need in finding a way to fill this huge void.
Oh Rotana what could have we done without you, well, maybe watch MBC2 or Dubai ONE TV or or or or….. Go to the cinema?! maybe rent a DVD, No…!
Ok, so what is so special about this channel? Does it show the latest of the latest movies, not exactly, it has been rumored that it will show movies as they were supposed to be watched…. UNCENSORED.
I realllllllly doubt that it is true, on NileSat and a free to air channel, that would be impossible. But some claim that they will depend on showing a warning before the movie. And their list of movies does include some questionable titles.
Most people who are into movies subscribes to Showtime, and this channel wont make any difference. The latest FOX movies go to Showtime and ORBIT anyway. So I guess this channel will make some noise for a week or so and then fade in the background.
My advice to those who care, DELETE this channel from your receivers even if they will censor, just don’t expose your kids and families to this CRAP.
UPDATE:FOX MOVIES press release states that the channel WILL actually censor all inappropriate scenes from the movies because of this region’s special traditions. And that some of the most famous movies will be selected to be dubbed in Arabic. And the press release also announced that later this year there will be another channel released for American series with the same brand name FOX.
South Park’s latest episode “Over Logging” is one of many amazing episodes, but I guess I can relate to this episode more than anything else, I Guess anybody who uses the net for anything these days can totally relate to it. Just imagine one day you wake up and there is no Internet!! Don’t tell me you wont do the unthinkable to get your precious INTERNET back.
I guess one of the best lines from the episode was:
“Don’t you get it? There’s no Internet to find out why there’s no Internet!”
“What did we used to do to get the news before the Internet?”
“TE..LE..VISION!!”
You can watch the Full Episode on South Park Studios, Click Here. But, here is one of the best scenes:
It seems that Rotana found that the Arab World is lacking in Movie Channels and/or we are not watching enough movies. So they felt the desperate need in finding a way to fill this huge void. 