LISBON: After 30 years of dominating the region’s entertainment airwaves, it was only fitting that a host of Arab media stars celebrated the anniversary of the Middle East Broadcasting Center at a lavish ceremony in the Portuguese capital on Wednesday.
Veteran Lebanese presenter George Kordahi hosted a special episode of ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ featuring prominent celebrities from MBC’s top shows — with all winnings going to charitable organizations.
“I am the happiest man in the world because I am attending this demonstration, this manifestation of love, fidelity, belonging to this company,” Kordahi told Arab News.
“I will host eight stars and I am happy to welcome big stars in the Arab world, like Yusra and Nasser Al Qasabi, and this means a lot to me.”
Legendary Egyptian actress Yusra spoke of the changes that have occurred in the television industry, especially over the past couple of years, which she described as “incredible.”
“I have been working on and off with MBC and it was one of my pleasures as an actress having all these facilities and having all this care while you were working,” she said. “At MBC, there was always care for you and for the work.”
Al Qasabi said that he and his colleagues are part of MBC’s development.
“We are there to influence and be influenced, we support and we are benefiting, and we are receiving a lot from this great school that is called MBC,” he said. “It is not only in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries but in the Arab world. It is the No. 1 channel among all Arab communities wherever they are in the world.”
The first private free-to-air satellite broadcasting company in the Arab World was launched in 1991 from London to show the world through an Arab perspective. It then moved its headquarters to Dubai in the UAE in 2002 but has always maintained the slogan ‘We See Hope Everywhere’ through decades of transitions.
Raya Joseph Abirached, a Lebanese TV presenter and celebrity journalist at MBC, described the huge network reunion as very emotional. She used the event to catch up with all the peers and colleagues she met throughout her career.
“I remember the 10th anniversary, 20th anniversary, 25th, but this is a big milestone and what is really amazing about tonight is it is a reunion of all the MBC faces,” she said.
Best known for her show ‘Scoop with Raya’ — a news show about Hollywood movies — and co-hosting ‘Arabs Got Talent,’ Abirached said her program has become the “flagship movie show of the Arab world” and she does not see it ending.
“Every year new movies (are released), there are new stars, and the content is always different and I never really want to change that. It is a nice combination and I do not think I would like to change the recipe,” she said.
One of the fundamental changes Abirached witnessed in the past few years is a big emergence of Arabic cinema coming to the international scene.
“Because of the presence of a flagship show like ‘Scoop with Raya,’ we are able to endorse those Arabic films in Hollywood and in European festivals,” she said. “This brings a huge flow of energy for me — to be able to support Arabic cinema abroad. So this is what is new.”
Regarding ‘Arabs Got Talent,’ Abirached said MBC’s version competed internationally and had more followers than ‘America’s Got Talent’ and ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ combined as it attracted between 150 to 200 million viewers.
“The presence of a global pan-Arabic channel like MBC has shown the world how big the Arab community is and how, through MBC, the community came together,” she said.
“This is what I am most proud about. The MBC family represents every corner of the Arab world from the Saudis to the Tunisians and from the Egyptians to the Lebanese. Everyone is represented and it shows the Arab world in the best light it can.”
Media personality Lina Sawan said the channel is celebrating a beautiful milestone as it is no longer young and experimenting, but at the same time, it is not old and still has a long way to go.
“Media is opening up a lot and there will be a lot more inclusivity and diversity and more women (participation),” she said.
“It is time to represent people in a completely different way, particularly since the language and template of social media have been integrated into the television industry. It is time for it to speed up, but also it has given the ability now to actually target your audience a little bit more specifically and this has become a lot more informative and helpful.”
Sawan said it is time for women to become executives and lead the conversation in the sector. She expects to see more female participation in all roles, from leadership to technological, creative, and managerial in the next couple of years.
Nashwa Ali Abdulhameed Al-Ruwaini, an Egyptian producer and media personality, said they used to take programs like ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ and ‘Big Brother’ and Arabize them. But now they have developed their own Arab format, including shows like ‘Prince of Poets’ and ‘Million’s Poet.’
From MBC, she moved on to the movie industry and has worked alongside Hollywood producers and directors while also helping cast Arab stars in international movies such as ‘Kingdom of Heaven.’
After witnessing a shift in television trends, Al-Ruwaini also worked to integrate social media with TV shows to make the experience more interactive for audiences.
“Now we got into artificial intelligence and we are using it in new media formats, which is coming out soon and hopefully one of them will be on MBC,” she said.
Razan Moughrabi, a British-Egyptian-Lebanese presenter, joined MBC at the age of 17 and her career kicked off when she began hosting the BBC version of ‘Top of the Pops.’
“We had a dream and we left our countries very young,” she said. “We went to England, the capital of information, the capital of everything, and we worked with so many nationalities — some we did not even know existed.”
Moughrabi was determined to make a difference in the way shows were presented as she pushed to change formats, set design, and brought so much energy and passion to her work.
And now, she said, “Things are changing. We are widening horizons, we are bridging the divide, and you can see in the Gulf how things are moving forward with women empowerment.”
Moughrabi also spoke of the obstacles women in the industry faced 30 years ago, but added that media has helped societies move forward and develop.
Nishan Derartinian, Lebanese presenter, said aside from producing good content, MBC, which operates over 17 free-to-air satellite TV channels in several languages, has always tried to be influential as much as possible.
“It has kept up with the changes and catered to the needs of all viewers, including the young generation,” he said. “To them, the world is different.”
