By Hanan Alnufaie
Saudi Gazette
RIYADH — Sky News Arabia celebrated its fifth anniversary in the region at Ritz Carlton Riyadh. “Fifth anniversary is a special occasion for us, we were able to achieve lots of the objectives set over those five years. We are very pleased with the results,” Nart Yousef Bouran, Chief Executive Officer of Sky News Arabia told Saudi Gazette.
Sky News is based in Abu Dhabi but it has 26 bureau across the world including: Riyadh and Jeddah.
He stressed that during this period of time, they focused mainly about establishing Sky News Arabia in the region as an Arabic news channel and as an independent channel from Sky News English.
“Yes we cooperate together since Sky News English own 50% of the company and we have excellent relations. But we are not their copy, all our staff are from the region,” he commented.
After the revolution of digital and social media since two years. Sky News has developed a plan to go with the flow. “Over the last two years, we realized that social and digital media are taking over. We are lucky because we are still 5 years old, so we were able to go with the flow. This because we kept telling our staff that we are not a TV news channel, we are a news platform. We started producing content in different ways that can work for all platforms including TV, Web, and soial media,” he added.
“The use of digital and social media is incredible. It is a big challenge for traditional media to prove itself among the thousands of channels on You Tube. We are very aware of this and working on to please all the tastes,” he added.
He responded to the idea that Sky News Arabia is mainly about politics by saying: “Yes the political instability in different countries in the region push us to fully cover these political areas. However, again we are not a political channel, we are a news channel. News means the latest and recent developments in politics, economy, lifestyle,. etc” He mentioned that they have expansion plans especially in Saudi Arabia due to its importance in the region and due to the vitally powerful role it plays not only in the region but also in the world. “We opened an office in Jeddah a year ago and the more is coming,” he said.
Hamad Al Mahmoud, Sky News Arabia Riyadh Bureau Chief stressed that Sky News Arabia has great interest in expanding in Saudi Arabia. “Before we used to have 6 offices across the world, now we have 26,” he said.
