Al Arabiya

• 1. Introduction

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  Al Arabiya launched on the 3rd of March 2003 from Dubai Media City, United Arab Emirates, with an explicit mission: to be a "balanced and less provocative" alternative to Al Jazeera. That phrase came from the early funder Middle East News, then headed by Ali al-Hedeithy. It planted a flag that would define and dog the network for decades. What does balance mean for a channel founded partly in response to Al Jazeera's critical coverage of the Saudi royal family? Who gets to define the line between balanced and compliant? The story of Al Arabiya runs through presidential interviews and journalist murders, international sanctions and fake columnists, a relocation ordered by government decree, and a landmark moment when a newly elected American president chose this channel, above all others, to address the Islamic world.

• 2. The Political Origin

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  Throughout the 1990s, Al Jazeera broadcast critical coverage of the Saudi royal family, and that coverage did not go unnoticed by the family itself. Relatives of the Saudi royal family established Al Arabiya in Dubai in 2002, and the founding investment came through the Middle East Broadcasting Center, later rebranded as MBC Group, along with investors from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Gulf states. Saudi Prince Abdulaziz bin Fahd and his maternal uncle Waleed bin Ibrahim al Ibrahim were reported to hold partial ownership through MBC. The channel was, from its first broadcast, rated among the top pan-Arab stations by Middle East audiences, described by regional viewers as second only to Al Jazeera in Saudi Arabia itself. In 2008, The New York Times described Al Arabiya as working to cure Arab television of its inclination toward radical politics and violence. The cure, critics would later argue, had its own politics.

• 3. Obama's First Interview

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  On the 26th of January 2009, six days into his presidency, Barack Obama sat down with Al Arabiya journalist Hisham Melhem for what became the first formal interview of his administration. Obama chose to deliver a message directly to the Islamic world: "Americans are not your enemy." He also reaffirmed that "Israel is a strong ally of the United States" and that they "will not stop being a strong ally of the United States." The choice of venue was deliberate. By selecting Al Arabiya over American or European outlets, the new administration signaled a shift in diplomatic tone. For Al Arabiya, the broadcast was a statement of credibility, proof that the channel had earned a place as a serious interlocutor between the West and the Arab world.

• 4. Journalists in Danger

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  In September 2003, Al Arabiya reporter Mazen al-Tumeizi was killed on camera in Iraq when a U.S. helicopter fired on a crowd in Haifa Street in Baghdad. The footage made the danger of covering Iraq undeniable. In February 2006, three Al Arabiya reporters were abducted and murdered while covering the aftermath of the bombing of a mosque in Samarra, Iraq. Among them was correspondent Atwar Bahjat, an Iraqi national. In 2012, Asia correspondent Baker Atyani was abducted in the Philippines by an armed militia and held for 18 months before his release. The pattern of violence against Al Arabiya staff coincided with ongoing pressure from Iraqi officials who, according to the channel itself, tried to force journalists to "report stories as dictated to." In 2014, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki threatened to ban Al Arabiya, shut its offices, and block its website; Al Arabiya's General Manager Abdulrahman al-Rashed vowed the channel and its sister network Al Hadath would continue reporting despite those threats.

• 5. Controversies and Sanctions

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  Iran expelled Al Arabiya's Tehran bureau chief Hassan Fahs in September 2008, the third Al Arabiya correspondent expelled from Iran since the channel opened its Iran office. The following month, the Al Arabiya website was hacked by attackers who identified themselves as Shi'ites. In June 2009, during the Iranian presidential election, the Iranian government ordered the Al Arabiya Tehran office closed for a week for what it called "unfair reporting"; seven days later, that closure became indefinite. In April 2017, the UK media regulator Ofcom found Al Arabiya in breach of UK broadcasting law after the channel broadcast footage of imprisoned Bahraini opposition leader and torture survivor Hassan Mushaima, obtained during his arbitrary detention. Ofcom fined the licence holder Al Arabiya News Channel FZ-LLC 120,000 and directed an on-air apology. The channel then surrendered its UK licence the following month after an additional complaint was filed by Qatar News Agency. On the 31st of July 2021, the Algerian Ministry of Communication withdrew Al Arabiya's operating accreditation, citing what it described as disinformation and manipulation.

• 6. Programming and Long-Running Shows

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  Special Mission premiered on the 19th of October 2003, making it Al Arabiya's longest-running investigative journalism program. Modeled on the investigative Panorama concept, it addresses a different issue each week through locally produced material or relevant documentaries, covering politics, economics, and religion. In 2023, Special Mission received a gold Telly award at the 44th Annual Telly Awards. Alongside it, Eda'at, hosted by Turki al-Dakhil, airs every Thursday at 2:00 PM Saudi Arabia time and focuses on one-on-one interviews with regional journalists, activists, and politicians. Rawafed, directed and hosted by Ahmad Ali El Zein and broadcast on Wednesdays at 5:30 PM, has featured writers Tahar Ben Jelloun and Gamal El-Ghitani, poets Adunis and Ahmed Fouad Negm and Joumana Haddad, and musicians Marcel Khalifa and Naseer Shamma. Diplomatic Avenues, hosted by Talal al-Haj and broadcast live from the United Nations headquarters on the last Friday of each month, focuses on political and humanitarian issues with emphasis on the Arab and Islamic worlds.

• 7. Ownership Shift and Relocation

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  On the 24th of April 2020, Al Arabiya overhauled its on-air identity: new graphics, new audio, new studios, and a modified logo in the network's first major rebrand since its 2003 launch. The following year brought a larger change. The network began moving operations from Dubai to Riyadh, with the stated goal of producing 12 hours of daily news programming from the Saudi capital by early January. The move aligned with Saudi government orders requiring multinational companies to relocate their regional headquarters to the kingdom by 2024. The relocation officially completed in July 2025. That same year, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia acquired a 54% stake in MBC Group, the parent company of Al Arabiya. Waleed bin Ibrahim al Ibrahim, one of the original stakeholders, retains a 36% stake. The PIF acquisition formalized what critics had long argued: that Al Arabiya's editorial independence was inseparable from the interests of the Saudi state.