USA/Iraq: US-Funded Radio, TV “Reach 71 Per Cent of Iraqis” – Survey

Text of press release by US-based Middle East Broadcasting Networks on 25 January

Al-Hurra TV and Radio Sawa together reach an unduplicated weekly audience of 71 per cent of Iraqi adults 15 and older, according to an independent survey.

The survey was conducted nationwide in Iraq during November and December 2005.

Radio Sawa alone reached 51 per cent of Iraqi adults, making it the most listened to radio station in Iraq. Al-Hurra alone reached 42 per cent of Iraqi adults weekly, ranking fifth among the more than 200 satellite and terrestrial TV stations that can be viewed in Iraq. The only four stations with larger weekly TV audiences than Al- Hurra were Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, Al-Iraqiyah (each with 71 per cent weekly reach) and Al-Sharqiya (67 per cent weekly reach).

The majority of viewers of Al-Hurra TV and listeners to Radio Sawa considered their news to be reliable. Seventy-three per cent of Al-Hurra’s weekly viewers said the news on the channel was reliable and 63 per cent of Radio Sawa’s weekly listeners said that station’s news was reliable. Radio Sawa was also cited as their number 1 source of radio news by 32 per cent of respondents in the survey followed by the BBC Arabic Service (13 per cent) and Radio Monte Carlo (nine per cent.)

The audience figures reported today confirmed similar findings in earlier studies done in Iraq in 2004 and 2005. This survey along with other surveys in 11 other countries in the Middle East by research companies such as ACNielsen and Ipsos show that together Al- Hurra and Radio Sawa have an unduplicated weekly reach of more than 35 million adults.

The results are based on over 2,000 face-to-face interviews with randomly selected respondents using internationally accepted standard sampling methods. The margin of error is approximately two per cent. This survey was conducted in cooperation with D3 Systems of Vienna, Virginia, by KA Research Limited, a regional research company operating throughout the Middle East and North Africa, with offices in Iraq, Turkey and Belgium.

Al-Hurra TV is broadcast on the Nilesat and Arabsat satellites, the same satellites used by the major regional Arabic channels. It is also available in Baghdad on Channel 12 and in Basra on Channel 3.

Al-Hurra was launched in February 2004, as an Arabic-language alternative source of news and information. Unlike the all-news networks Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, Al-Hurra carries a wide range of current affairs programmes (covering Iraqi and international news) as well as documentaries and other informational programming on a wide variety of subjects, including health and personal fitness, entertainment news, sports, fashion and science and technology.

Al-Hurra maintains a large news bureau in Baghdad which is both the coordination point for its nationwide network of correspondents and the origination point for interviews and roundtables on issues facing Iraq today.

Al-Hurra is operated by the non-profit corporation “The Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc” (MBN). MBN is financed by the US government through a grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an independent federal agency. The BBG serves oversight and as a firewall to protect the professional independence and integrity of the broadcasters. For more information on Al-Hurra go to www.alhurra.com.

MBN also operates Radio Sawa, which seeks to effectively communicate with the youthful population of Arabic-speakers in the Middle East by providing up-to-date news, information and a mix of Western and Arabic popular music on its 24/7 FM and mediumwave radio stations throughout the region. Its secondary target audience is news-seekers of all ages. Radio Sawa is committed to broadcasting accurate, timely and relevant news about the Middle East, the world and the United States, to the highest standards of journalism, as well as the free marketplace of ideas, respect for the intelligence and culture of its audience, and a style that is upbeat, modern and forward-looking.

Radio Sawa broadcasts on FM in Iraq in the cities of Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Nasiriyah, Sulaymaniyah and Erbil. The station can also be heard throughout the country on mediumwave (AM). Radio Sawa also broadcasts on FM in Morocco (Rabat, Casablanca, Tangier, Meknes, Marrakesh, Agadir and Fez), Jordan (Amman and Ajlun), Palestinian territories (Ramallah), Kuwait (Kuwait City), Bahrain (Manama), Qatar (Doha), UAE (Abu Dhabi and Dubai), and Djibouti. Radio Sawa broadcasts on mediumwave (AM) to Egypt, Yemen and Sudan. Radio Sawa streams its programming at its all-news website www.radiosawa.com.

Contact: Deirdre Kline, Director of Communications of Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc., +1-703-852-9250