Al Sharqiya ("The Eastern One") is Iraq's first privately owned satellite channel owned by the London-based Iraqi media tycoon Saad al-Bazzaz, A Sunni-Arab Ba'thist from Mosul, a former head of radio and television under the Saddam Hussein regime until he defected in 1992. al-Bazzaz is also the Editor in Chief of the Azzaman newspaper. The station was launched in March 2004 and began regular transmission on 4 May 2004.
Al Sharqiya now has been ga...
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Al Sharqiya ("The Eastern One") is Iraq's first privately owned satellite channel owned by the London-based Iraqi media tycoon Saad al-Bazzaz, A Sunni-Arab Ba'thist from Mosul, a former head of radio and television under the Saddam Hussein regime until he defected in 1992. al-Bazzaz is also the Editor in Chief of the Azzaman newspaper. The station was launched in March 2004 and began regular transmission on 4 May 2004.
Al Sharqiya now has been gaining a growing audience with its mixture of popular current affairs, satire and comedy shows poking fun at the new Iraq.
The satellite channel with the greatest reach in Iraq, according to a June Ipsos-Stat poll, is the Saudi-owned news channel Al Arabiya with 41 percent reach, followed by private Iraqi satellite channel Al Sharqiya at 40 percent.
Sharqiya's director says his current staff of 100 hopes to capture a wide audience by using political comedy and the kind of impartial news coverage unheard of during decades of rule by ousted head...
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