Prince Alwaleed’s Alarab Channel Goes Off-Air Soon After Launch

Alarab, the new 24-hour Arabic language news channel backed by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, went off-air on Monday, a day after it went live.

On its official Twitter account, the Bahrain-based channel said that programming ceased because of “technical and administrative reasons” and that it will be back on air soon.

However, Bahraini daily Akhbar al-Khaleej reported that the channel was forced off-air since it aired an interview with former Bahraini MP Khalil Marzouq, an opposition politician.

Alarab, initially slated to launch in end-2012, seeks to be an “independent and impartial channel,” its general manager Jamal Khashoggi has said.

Speaking to Gulf Business in 2012, Prince Alwaleed had said that the channel would be somewhere between Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya.

“Al Jazeera is considered as the channel of the Arab masses and Al Arabiya is thought to be the channel of the governments. I don’t believe that it is the right choice, or the only choice that the Arab people should have,” he said.

Alarab will adopt an evolutionary approach to news, he added.

“A great many changes are needed in the Arab world, and these can be achieved by orderly means and not necessarily by violence.”