Regional unrest gives boost to BBC Arabic

Regional uprisings have prompted a boost to the BBC's Arabic TV service, which reports an 80 per cent rise in audience numbers.

The British broadcaster's various Arabic services - which include TV, online and radio - now draw a total audience of 33.4 million adults weekly, up from 21.6 million before the Arab Spring, the BBC said today.

Viewers of the BBC's Arabic-language television station have risen to 24.4 million from 13.5 million, a rise of more than 80 per cent, the broadcaster said.

The BBC was quoting an independent study carried out by the Broadcasting Board of Governors' International Audience Research Program, which was based on surveys in Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabic, Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco.

Despite growth in TV and online audiences, the research found a drop in audience numbers for the BBC's Arabic radio service from 11.5 million to 10.1 million.

Other news channels have also seen gains in audiences in the wake of the Arab Spring.

Mindsight, the research arm of the media agencies Mindshare and MediaCom, said in February that there had been a "meteoric rise" in viewership of Arabic news channels in Saudi Arabia, the largest market in the GCC.

This saw Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera rise as the second and third most-popular channels in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, according to Mindsight.