TV station for youth feeds into Riyadh’s modernisation drive
Saudi Arabia’s ambitious reform drive takes another step forward this week, with the launch of a public TV channel for young viewers that will project a modern image abroad.
SBC will broadcast exclusive content including films, talk shows and cooking programmes. The move follows the announcement this month of a US$35 billion (Dh128.56bn) drive to turn Saudi Arabia into a culture and entertainment centre by 2020.
“This is a general channel that’s seeking to attract the new generation of Saudis,” said the station’s director, Dawood Shirian, a TV personality who hosted a talk show tapping into the public’s gripes.
“Most of the content, about 75 per cent, is geared toward the youth between 15 and 35 years old.”
Shirian said that SBC would “complement the changes seen in the kingdom in the artistic, cultural and entertainment spheres”.
He was poached late last year from private rival MBC to lead the state-run Saudi Broadcasting Corporation and to organise the launch of SBC.
The move was seen as a deliberate shock for the state broadcaster, one in a series of radical changes guided by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The heir to the Saudi throne declared to foreign investors in Riyadh last October that his generation of Saudis “want to live a normal life” and is the guiding hand behind the lifting of long-standing social restrictions.
The kingdom last year announced a decades-long ban on women driving would be lifted on June 24.
As with Saudi Arabia’s entertainment industry, which aims to convince citizens to spend their riyals at home, SBC is being positioned to attract hundreds of millions of riyals in advertising money.
“As it stands, 90 per cent of these budgets are going outside Saudi Arabia and this channel’s mission is to repatriate that money, along with skilled young Saudis,” Shirian said.
SBC will become the entertainment flagship for the Saudi Broadcasting Corporation, which also has two channels dedicated to Quran readings and education and news-dedicated channel Al Ekhbariya.
Channel 1’s public programming will continue “but is geared more for the older generation”, Shirian said.
Last week, SBC said that its programming would “keep pace with the spirit of development and renewal launched by the kingdom’s Vision 2030, to promote the spirit of openness and reject extremist thought”.
“Our goal is to have a very strong launch,” said Fahad Shalil, the production and programming director, and “compete with the top channels”.
SBC’s launch is timed to coincide with Ramadan, when families tend to gather to watch television after breaking the fast.
Women, whose wardrobes on the sister news station Al Ekhbariya have evolved from black abayas to coloured palettes and bold make-up, will feature prominently on screen and off, working in production alongside male colleagues.
Buoyed by his colourful past and strong ratings, Shirian enters the playing field with a clean slate and the blessing of the authorities.
“We aim to be at the front of the pack from the first day,” he said. “We are not afraid of the weight of competitors and we will overtake them quickly.”
But the competition does not seem too fazed, for now.
“We have always been in favour of competition,” said Mazen Hayek, a spokesman for MBC. “The tougher the race, the sweeter the victory.”
In Dubai, SBC has launched a campaign with the slogan, “You are forced to love it”, which is a play on words, because Saudis in the past would joke that they were forced to watch limited state programmes.
SBC will become the entertainment flagship for the Saudi Broadcasting Corporation