Sky News Arabia

Sky News Arabia is an Arabic news and current affairs channel broadcast mainly in the Middle East and North Africa. It is a joint venture between UK-based Sky plc 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 plc’s 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.

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.

Sky News Arabia