Battling the tide

by Anthony Mills February 1, 2004

written by Anthony Mills February 1, 2004

Saudi billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s recent $98 million purchase of a 49% share in the satellite broadcasting arm of leading Lebanese television station LBC International has provided a welcome, if modest, boost to Lebanon’s satellite television sector. The industry has been struggling to compete with cash-laden Gulf channels like market leader MBC and Abu Dhabi TV – both backed financially by their respective governments – and to overcome the roughly $30 million, or 20%, loss in 2003 television advertising revenues caused, according to LBC Chairman Pierre Daher, by the war in Iraq and the bombings in Riyadh. “The move has reinforced the position of LBC as a potential leader in the region,” stated Daher. “Walid bin Talal did not make this jump into LBC just because he felt like it. It was carefully planned. He thinks LBC has potential,” said Daher, who discounted the suggestion that bin Talal,

Anthony Mills

M. Anthony Mills is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the Pepperdine School of Public Policy, as well as a scholar associate of the Society of Catholic Scientists. Previously, he served as associate editor of The New Atlantis, executive editor of Big Questions Online, and was a journalist at Executive magazine in Lebanon. Mills holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame and writes extensively on topics related to science and philosophy.

Battling the tide

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