CONCLUSIONES Y RECOMENDACIONES

The development of Arabic satellite television has restricted the ability of national governments to control the flow of information across the region. Furthermore, these channels have allowed more people and more voices on their shows which air a wide range of views on even controversial topics, a significant innovation. Kraidy (2002, p.5) stated that:

Satellite television talk-shows serve as a catalyst for a democratic renewal, where Arab audience members would mobilise as citizens and become increasingly interested in participation in democratic politics.

The era of free satellite television began in the early 1990s and has transformed the landscape of regional televisual media from being inherently national, to being global or pan-Arabic. It has also brought competition among television stations in the region (Sakr, 2001). The Economist (2005) described satellite television in the region as “a kind of

virtual Arab metropolis” which created a sense of belonging and at the same time, a new shift happened in which people had more sources of news and information. Satellite television has also become a source of news in the region (Khatib, 2009).

Kraidy (2002) argued that satellite television had brought a shared pan-Arab identity strengthened through the shows and platforms that allowed the discussion of various

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late 1970s as a result of political defeats and the collapse of Arab unity in the early 1960s Ajami (1978). However, according to Phillips (2013), the concept of Arabism is still alive, especially among Arabic speaking countries. The satellite channel Al Jazeera, for example, provides citizens from 22 different Arab states a shared public platform to discuss and debate issues of national concern which potentially can strengthen the cultural ties between the Arab countries (Phillips, 2013). Citizens in many Arab countries, including Jordan, have taken to the streets during the times of war in Iraq and Palestine to express solidarity with the affected civilians in these countries (Phillips, 2013).

Both the Egyptian satellite system NILESAT and the satellite THURAYYA were launched in 2000, augmenting the existing satellite ARABSAT, dating back to 1976, in the provision of information to both the public and private sectors (Lahlali, 2011).

With the transformation has come competition between the regional television stations with the likes of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. In order to compete with other regional channels and countries, Jordan has taken steps to end the government monopoly over the ownership of television licences, thus granting more freedom in the media landscape. In 2002, a number of private radio and television stations were established after the public monopoly on broadcasting was brought to an end, extensively increasing the diversity of media output available to Jordanians. Simultaneously, a few proactive measures to promote media diversity were included in the overall framework for the media (UNESCO, 2015). In this regard, it is worth mentioning that JRTV in Jordan is a national channel that covers international, Arab and national Jordanian news and other content such as drama and talk shows unlike Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya which only cover and broadcast news bulletins and programmes twenty-four hours a day.

Regarding the media scene in Jordan after ending the government monopoly over license holding, the country has seen the establishment of various new privately-owned television and radio stations due to the liberalisation process following the passing of the 2002 Audio-visual Law (Alisal, 2015). This law governs the granting of private licenses for television and radio broadcasters and oversight of the licensing process. It also deals with content restrictions as well as additional licensing fees for news or political broadcasting (Alisal, 2015).

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The second stage of liberalisation was founding the Audiovisual Media Commission of Jordan in the same year to regulate the audio-visual media sector in accordance with the criteria of transparency, independence and diversity. It also grants licenses for the equipment and technical means used for radio and television, in coordination with the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC). The law, therefore, opened the media sector to private ownership (Alisal, 2015).

However, due to the fact that stations which wished to feature news had to pay a license fee premium of fifty per cent over the standard licence fee, although this was abolished in 2012, it is obvious that the licensing framework originally privileged entertainment over news. As a result, television stations which wish to broadcast terrestrially still suffer significant obstructions as a result of licensing fees which are extremely high, and this serves as part of the reason for all of the new television broadcasters transmitting via satellite (OECD, 2013).

Jordan now has forty-five licensed satellite television channels. Seventeen of these are owned by and directed at Jordanians, while the rest are Saudi and Iraqi channels (UNESCO, 2015). Two of the Jordanian channels are public, one owned by Jordan Television while the other belongs to the Royal Cultural Centre, and fifteen are private. All of these channels broadcast from Jordan Media City. In terms of content, only eight of the private channels broadcast locally produced programmes and, of these, four broadcast a variety of social and entertainment programmes, and current affairs talk shows and programmes, but only three, Ro’ya television, Al-Haqiqa Al-Dawliya, and AlMamlaka television broadcast news.

The other nine Jordanian satellite channels are called “slide television”, depending largely

upon scrolling advertisements displayed at the bottom of the screen, with static images accompanied by songs on the main part of the screen. These channels do not have their own studios, in contrast to traditional television stations. A number of these stations broadcast without a licence, and dozens are shut down each year, according to Jordan Media City Director Amjad Al-Qadi (UNESCO, 2015).

According to Al-Qadi, terrestrial television broadcasting is only owned by the government, as it is more expensive to establish a terrestrial than a satellite television station. Terrestrial channels in Jordan consist of JTV’s two channels: Jordan Television

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and the Sports channel, which also broadcasts sessions from the Jordanian parliament’s

Lower House (UNESCO, 2015).

The services provided to Jordanian homes are analogue, digital terrestrial television, cable and direct-to-home satellite services. Digital television services are provided through satellite operators and video-digital radio broadcasting operators using the satellite multipoint video distribution system DVB-MS. In 2001, Jordan merged the two terrestrial radio broadcasting services, Jordan 1 and 2, into its satellite channel called Jordan Space Channel due to considerable financial losses (Ali, 2013). Jordan now has a terrestrial television channel which is also transmitted directly to individuals via satellite. Similar to the Arabic and the rest of the southern Mediterranean cities, each urban household in Jordan has the opportunity to have access to a satellite dish which provides over nine hundred free channels. It is considered the most widespread means of transmission, the most effective and the most preferred by Jordanian households. In 2010, Jordan had 1,028,000 television-owning households, 1,002,000 of which are equipped for satellite reception, i.e. 97.4 per cent of television-equipped households, according to the statistics published by the European operator Eutelsat (Ali, 2013). Sweis and Baslan (2013) reported that ninety per cent of the population in Jordan have satellite reception with nearly six hundred channels available free by satellite.

Jordan uses HotBird to transmit to Europe and Telestar to transmit to North America; the Egyptian Nilesat satellite and the Arab Arabsat satellite ensure the transmission of Jordanian channels to the Arab world. For internet viewers, Jordanian channels are available online; they can be found on web sites such as Global Internet television and

IPTV Guide. Jordan’s Audiovisual Commission currently gives a licence to one terrestrial

channel and thirty-eight satellite channels (Ali, 2013). Whilst this section highlighted the proliferation of satellite television in Jordan, the following section will discuss how television today brings in varied news stories and information to the Arab public, especially Jordanians.