How long will the government tolerate private satellite channel Dream TV? Shaden Shehab digs for answers Click to view caption Dream TV, a private satellite channel primarily owned by Egyptian businessman Ahmed Bahgat, received a warning on Sunday from the General Authority for Free Zones, that "strict measures will be taken" if the channel "again tackles serious subjects in a sensational manner". The authority is the body responsible -- among other things -- for issuing and revoking licenses of private satellite channels located in the 6 October Media City free zone. Its warning was directed at the channel for tackling "very sensitive issues" for Egyptian and Arab societies. But what exactly are these "sensitive issues?" The warning specifically referred to a programme hosted by the channel's vice president and star presenter Hala Sarhan -- a talk show whose topic was divorce amongst young Egyptians. The show's discussion went on to cover a broad range of subjects, including the issue of masturbation and its effect on marital relationships. Media observers interviewed by Al- Ahram Weekly seemed surprised at the authority's move, arguing that the channel has dealt with sex-related issues in the past with nobody showing much concern. Why now, they asked? When Dream TV -- which is 10 per cent owned by the state-run Egyptian Radio and TV Union (ERTU) -- was launched in November 2001 as the country's first private satellite channel, Egyptians were not overly optimistic about the venture being serious or successful. The general mood was that the channel -- private or not -- would play it safe when it came to society's taboos, always keeping in mind that some red lines cannot be crossed. Entertainment was expected to trump "sensitive" or political issues. For a few months, these suspicions proved correct. Dream 1 -- launched a few months before Dream 2-- mainly featured video clips, live musical performances, and shows that merely interviewed movie stars or singers. The channel, nevertheless, became quite popular because it always seemed to air new songs before other Arab satellite channels did. And because state-run TV was forcing music producers to pay airtime fees to have their video clips broadcast, Dream TV became popular amongst artists as well. With the launch of Dream 2, people were in for a surprise. The number of talk shows, interviews, and other programmes that were hosted by high- calibre journalists gradually expanded, as did their subject matter -- which eventually did deal with "sensitive" issues, from thorny political talk to sex- related themes. "The idea was to have one independent channel that includes a mixture of entertainment and information. But we found out that the Arabs, and especially Egyptians, are hungry for something better, more credible and more thoughtful. So we decided to have Dream 2, and the more different shows we aired the more success we attained," Osama El-Sheikh, the channel's general manager, told Al-Ahram Weekly. Dream TV is open to all types of opinions and ideologies, he said. "Let people express themselves, let people be entertained, let people choose what to believe in and what not to believe in." During the talk shows, especially those hosted by Hala Sarhan, issues of all sorts were discussed -- many of which viewers could not expect to watch on Egyptian TV. Her talk shows allowed space for criticism of the government on controversial issues while the government itself was trying to soften criticism at the same time on its own channels. After about 400 people died in Egypt's train inferno disaster in February, Sarhan's show hosted guests who accused the government of being "corrupt and incompetent". Although Dream's programmes allowed government figures to express their views, they were also fiercely counter-attacked by the other guests. When senior political analyst Mohamed Hassanein Heikal chose "to address the nation" via Dream, the channel's credibility was at its peak. Heikal, a close confidante and advisor to late President Gamal Abdel-Nasser, rarely publishes his work in the Egyptian press or appears on TV channels, despite his extraordinarily popular appeal. Heikal has thus far done three two- hour shows entitled Al-Ustaz (The Professor), each of which made a point of discussing hot political topics using an approach entirely different from the media's standard. Needless to say, the shows have all had a huge impact. "Heikal topped the list of people we wanted to appear on Dream. We contacted him several times but he refused," El-Sheikh said. "Then suddenly, he contacted us and told us he wants to talk. It was my idea that he appear alone without a presenter." Heikal first appeared last March when Israel reinvaded the West Bank and placed Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat under siege. He criticised the Arab Summit in Beirut, the Saudi peace initiative and those who viewed Arafat's siege as more important than the dangerous situation befalling the Palestinian people themselves. In the second appearance, which was broadcast in July, Heikal pointed to information disclosed by a British official about "secret" clauses in the Camp David accords stipulating that Egypt play a role in maintaining security in Gaza. His third appearance was on 4 October in which he stressed that contrary to widely-held beliefs, Iraq and the Arab world are not the US's ultimate target, but merely the battlefield. By then, although Heikal had not spoken about Egyptian politics, it appeared as though Dream TV had managed to successfully avoid government interference in its affairs. The word on the street was that "Dream enjoys unprecedented freedom of expression." When prominent broadcaster Hamdi Qandil, who hosts Egyptian TV's popular Ra'is Al-Tahrir (Editor-in-Chief) programme, attacked the Beirut Arab Summit and the leaders who participated in it, for being all talk and no action when it came to helping the Palestinians, the broadcast was abruptly cut off. Today, in addition to Ra'is Al- Tahrir, Qandil also hosts a show on Dream. Dream was the only Egyptian channel that chose to air a lecture that Heikal gave on 14 October at the American University in Cairo (AUC) entitled 'The Future is Now'. This time, Heikal chose to talk about Egypt and its future. He proposed that a national dialogue take place throughout the remaining three years of the current presidential term in order to reach a collective national decision on drawing a new map for the future. Going further, Heikal commented on speculation surrounding the bequeathing of the presidency in Egypt. Heikal reminded the audience that President Hosni Mubarak and the son around whom the speculation revolves, Gamal Mubarak, have both emphatically rejected that notion on a number of occasions. Egypt is not like other states, Heikal said, that are governed by sectarian, tribal or clan politics. Republics, he argued, do not allow for the inheritance of power. The lecture was broadcast two times and was supposed to appear again, until the channel canceled it for "technical reasons". But a Dream TV source said the channel was "advised" not to continue airing the lecture. Will Heikal's show continue appearing on Dream every three months in accordance with his agreement with the channel? Despite El- Sheikh's confident "of course," observers have their doubts. Since 17 October, the channel has been criticised from all sides. It was the Liberal Wafd Party who took the initiative, starting a ferocious campaign which accused the channel of airing "scandalous" programmes that even "embarrass prostitutes", as the party's mouthpiece Al-Wafd announced on its front page. Al-Wafd newspaper cautioned the government "to monitor how the billions in loans taken from banks are spent on programmes about masturbation." As a result, Minister of Information Safwat El-Sherif asked the General Authority for Free Zones to investigate the channel's violations. At the same time, he said that, "examining violations does not mean imposing restrictions on private satellite channels' freedom of expression." Prominent Al-Ahram columnist Salama Ahmed Salama said that "an injustice has been done to Dream TV. A private TV channel should not necessarily be one of traditional views, but one that is more open. There is nothing wrong with discussing issues that for long were described as taboos. The viewers will simply [get that material] from other [non-Egyptian] channels. At least [on Dream] the programmes host Egyptian guests who know that there are certain limits within our society. If there are red lines, then why allow private TV ownership in the first place? The government should not contradict itself," Salama said. Another prominent journalist, who preferred to remain anonymous, said, "the whole issue is not about Hala Sarhan's show -- it is about airing Heikal." On Saturday, Bahgat himself appeared on his own channel, as a guest of a talk show hosted by columnist Magdi Mehanna. Ironically, the show resulted in Mehanna's removal as chief editor of Al-Wafd. Wafd Party Chairman No'man Gom'a dismissed him the following day on the pretext that Mehanna had been working for Dream TV without the notification and approval of the paper. Strangely, Gom'a did not notify Mehanna in person but chose to dismiss him via a statement on Al-Wafd's front page. "It is essential that a chief editor, especially of a political party [paper], be totally loyal to it, so his loyalty would not be split between two media-related jobs that could potentially clash," the statement said. During Mehanna's show, Bahgat said that Dream's budget does not originate from the LE1.6 billion in bank loans he has received over the years. He also stressed that he is not one of the businessmen who received loans without sufficient collateral and subsequently defaulted on them, indicating that his assets amount to LE1.7 billion. Bahgat explained that because he was spending so much on advertising -- some LE40 million annually -- he might as well spend the same amount on his own TV station and air his ads for free. Bahgat owns numerous businesses in fields as varied as furniture, electronics, appliances, marble, plastics and medical equipment, as well as a suburban amusement park and subdivisions called, respectively, Dreampark and Dreamland. He also has his own sports club and is planning to establish a newspaper. As for Dream TV, Bahgat said that if it was not for the "encouragement and support of the government, we would not have achieved such success". But the mogul also said that "in Egypt, people do not want to face reality. We ignore problems and assume they will be solved on their own." He assured viewers that there would be no dilution of the political issues discussed by the channel, as some press reports have speculated. "On the contrary..." he said, inspiring many to speculate that "after all that hustle and bustle, time will only tell how far and long will Dream be tolerated." Related stories: Protocols, politics and Palestine
