Christian Satellite Programming

Why use Satellite Television in the Middle East and North Africa

In America, we can receive local television signals for free through an antenna, or we can pay for cable service or satellite services. Until recently in the Middle East, the choices were much more restricted. Except in Cairo and a few other large cities, there were few channels. Most of the channels that existed were controlled by the government and presented in whatever slant the government chose. Cable as we know it was non-existent. There was no such thing as Christian television.

The change began during the Gulf War in the 90's when people became desperate for uncensored news. They started turning to a new technology — satellite TV. With the appropriate dish and receiver, they could pick up European satellite channels and receive uncensored news. Seeing a new opportunity unfold, both Al Jazeera and SAT-7 were born, during this period.

In just over a decade, satellite television has flourished in the entire Middle East. Where there once was a government monopoly on television, today almost every viewpoint finds expression on one or more of the approximately 300 Arabic language satellite television channels. Most are available free of charge to any viewer with a satellite dish and receiver. About half of the 500 million population of the area now has access to satellite television, and the numbers continue to grow. SAT-7's channels are free to anyone with a receiver.

It may come as a surprise that so many people have television sets in a part of the world where many of the people live in poverty. However, television is even more important to people who have no other options for uncensored information. To many, this is more valuable and important than other appliances or pieces of furniture. In the Middle East about half the people cannot read a newspaper, but they can understand the television programs and news reports.

Satellite television also offers benefits to broadcasters. Even if permission to do so could be obtained, it would be cost-prohibitive to put up enough towers and transmitters to cover the entire Middle East and North Africa. However, this entire region plus all of Europe (with an additional 55 million Arabic-speakers) can be covered by a satellite signal at a relatively reasonable cost.

Perhaps the greatest advantage both to the viewer and the broadcaster is that it is nearly impossible to censor or jam a satellite signal. The SAT-7 signal is uplinked from the island of Cyprus to the satellite in synchronous orbit 22,300 miles above the Equator. From there it is beamed back to earth. Since the signal goes directly from the satellite to the individual dish, there is no practical way to jam or censor it.

With more than 300 channels in the Middle East, television has become extremely competitive. Since they have so many choices, just having a program on the air is not sufficient to gain an audience. A channel must attract and hold an audience. No matter how important the content, a dry lecture will not attract much of an audience, especially among young people. Knowing this, SAT-7 works hard to make programming that is both Biblical and fun to watch by using drama, quiz shows, question and answer shows, music videos, and many others. Efforts to make the programming more interesting have yielded dividends in both audience size and response.