Broadcaster funded by U.S. gains in Syria

Recent figures from marketing information company A.C. Nielsen show that the U.S. government-funded Arabic language satellite broadcaster Al Hurra (“the Free One”) has made significant gains in Syria, despite sharp disagreements between Damascus and Washington.

The survey, conducted in December and January, showed that the channel had a weekly audience of 39 percent among Syrians 15 or older in homes with satellite television. Sixty percent of those viewers said they found Al Hurra’s news coverage “reliable.” The survey of 1,516 adults was conducted using face-to-face interviews and has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.

Al Hurra, which began airing Feb. 14, 2004, is part of the Bush administration’s ambitious agenda to win over public opinion in the Arab and Muslim world. The reputation of the United States in the region was battered by the war in Iraq and the perception that Washington is biased toward Israel in the latter’s conflict with the Palestinians.

Previous Bush administration efforts at public diplomacy have been criticized. A report by Edward Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, urged an overhaul of efforts directed at the Middle East.

“Hostility toward America has reached shocking levels,” said the report, issued in 2003. “What is required is not merely tactical adaptation, but strategic and radical transformation.”

As part of President Bush’s commitment to change some of that perception, the administration, in its 2006 budget, proposed approximately $758 million for public-diplomacy programs.

This does not include an additional $652 million for U.S. government-funded broadcasters such as Al Hurra, Radio Sawa, Voice of America and others. U.S. spending on broadcasting is now comparable to that during the Cold War.

Al Hurra, which reaches 120 million people in 22 countries, has provoked debate in the United States and the Arab world.

Supporters of the channel say it is bringing diversity of views into the Muslim world, where broadcasts by Qatar-based Al Jazeera, which Washington regards as biased, and Saudi-funded Al Arabiya, dominate. Critics say Al Hurra is a U.S. propaganda tool and view it with suspicion.

“We have been successful by almost any measure,” Norman Pattiz, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ Middle East Committee, told UPI. “We are well ahead of where we expected to be at this time.”

Mr. Pattiz was careful not to say that Al Hurra is taking viewers away from Al Jazeera, the most popular satellite network in the Arab world. He noted, however, that Al Jazeera had a nine-year head start and is, in some countries, more popular than their governments.

“We’re unlikely to be the first choice in television,” he said. “But we’re doing well against Al Arabiya and other satellites.”

“Al Hurra television is helping promote media plurality, and it is a worthwhile project that contributes to the diversity of opinion and thought,” said Al Arabi Shoueikha, a professor at the Institute of Journalism and Media Sciences in Tunis, Tunisia.

Although exact figures were not available, a survey by A.C. Nielsen in July and August showed inroads in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Seventy-one percent of those surveyed found Al Hurra’s news coverage either “very reliable” or “somewhat reliable.”

More telling were weekly viewing rates among people 15 or older in the countries where the survey was conducted. Although the channel fared well in more Westernized countries such as Jordan (29 percent) and Kuwait (33 percent), Al Hurra’s reach in traditional allies such as Egypt was relatively low (12 percent). Others include Lebanon with 20 percent, Morocco with 22 percent and Saudi Arabia with 24 percent.

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