Sky News Arabia (Arabic: سكاي نيوز عربية Skāy Nyūz ʻArabīyah) is an Arabic 24-hour rolling news channel broadcast mainly in the Middle East and North Africa. It is a joint venture between UK-based Sky Group and Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation (ADMIC), owned by Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi Emirate ruling family. The channel uses Sky News brand and was launched on 6 May 2012.
The channel is based in Abu Dhabi’s twofour54 media zone and has a network of bureaux across MENA, along with offices in London and Washington, DC. It also shares access to Sky News’ wider international bureaux network.
BSkyB and Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan first announced a 50/50 joint venture to operate a free-to-air Arabic-language all-news channel on 29 November 2010. Adrian Wells, head of international news at Sky News, was appointed to lead preparations to launch the channel.
In February 2011, Nart Bouran was hired as Sky News Arabia’s first director of news. Bouran was previously director of television at Reuters. Yasser Thabet, former program director at Al Arabiya, joined Sky News Arabia as director of output in June 2011 and Nicholas Love was appointed as director of finance.
Al-Waleed bin Talal, the second-largest shareholder in 21st Century Fox, which has a 39.1% stake in BSkyB, announced in September 2011 that he would launch another Arabic news channel, Alarab News Channel. That station closed on the same day it launched.
Operations at the network’s headquarters in twofour54 media zone, Abu Dhabi, began in February 2012. It began broadcasting on 6 May 2012.
On 8 November 2015, Sky News Arabia launched its own radio station at 90.3 FM, which was originally the home of BBC World Service in Arabic. It is a live-anchored all-news station offering general news, weather, sports, traffic, stock market updates and political discussion in randomized blocks. Specialized segments are created specifically for morning, early afternoon, and early evening hours. Several television programmes can also be heard as well.
Launched | 6 May 2012; 7 years ago |
|---|---|
| Owned by | Sky Group (Comcast) (50%) Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation (50%) |
| Picture format | 576i (16:9 SDTV) 1080i (HDTV) |
| Slogan | الخبر كل الخبر (The whole story) |
| Language | Arabic |
| Broadcast area | Worldwide |
| Headquarters | Abu Dhabi |
| Sister channel(s) | Sky News |