Will Iranians watch Saudi-financed Persian TV?
Hoping to reach an Iranian audience, Saudi Arabia is moving to focus more on Persian-language media, but the kingdom has little advantage in an already saturated market.
Calls for a stepped up media campaign against Iran have become more common in the Arab press in the past few months. Last week, Saudi outlet Al-Watan published a column by its Iran expert Muhammad Al-Sulami, who urged more active campaigning against the Islamic Republic in the Arab media while lamenting the current media strategies of Persian Gulf states. In October, the London-based online newspaper Elaph, which is owned by an influential Saudi businessman, called on Arab states to finance Persian-language TV channels as a potential response to what it called “Iran’s arrogant behavior” toward Arab countries.
“Even if [those TV channels] focus just on the domestic problems of Iran, which are many, the impact on the political behavior of Iran would be clear,” the Elaph article argues. In another instance, Saudi analyst Mubarak Aldujain argued in a comment to Al-Watan that TV broadcasts are not enough and need to be supported by an extensive social media campaign, especially through Twitter, as “marketing windows” for such broadcasts.
Saudi Arabia’s sense of need for a Persian-language media platform is not new. The Saudi-owned news network Al Arabiya launched its Persian-language news site in 2008. Asharq Al-Awsat, an influential London-based newspaper owned by the Saudi royal family, started its online Persian-language service in 2013. More recently, in September, Saudi Minister of Culture and Information Adel al-Turaifi launched the kingdom’s Persian-language TV channel with 24/7 broadcasting during the hajj season. Although the channel stopped operating after the hajj was over, it is expected to resume its activities in the near future. The Al-Arabiya Al-Jadid news site reported in August that the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information is planning to establish two more satellite TV news channels — one in English and one in Persian — which would operate under the supervision of the Saudi government.
Persian-language media outlets funded by various foreign governments is not a new phenomenon. The BBC’s Persian Service began its radio broadcasts in 1941, followed shortly by VOA Persian Radio in 1942. These media outlets have played an important role in Iran’s social and political scene by providing an alternative channel of information to the Iranian state's broadcasting. Saudi Arabia seems to follow the same model with its expanded focus on Persian-language media. But how successful can the latest Saudi initiative really become?
