Saudi Media Forum partners up with International Broadcasting Convention

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The Saudi Media Forum has officially become the primary media partner of the International Broadcasting Convention — supported by the European Broadcasting Union — ahead of Riyadh’s Future of Media Exhibition. (Supplied)
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Updated 04 August 2024
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Saudi Media Forum partners up with International Broadcasting Convention

  • Agreement includes allocation of dedicated pavilion for Saudi Broadcasting Authority at the annual exhibition

RIYADH: The Saudi Media Forum has officially become the primary media partner of the International Broadcasting Convention — supported by the European Broadcasting Union — ahead of Riyadh’s Future of Media Exhibition, or FOMEX, in 2025.

The agreement includes the allocation of a dedicated pavilion for the Saudi Broadcasting Authority at the annual IBC Exhibition in Amsterdam. Moreover, IBC will actively promote the forum and its accompanying exhibition through its extensive European media network.

This collaboration aims to elevate awareness and engagement with these events across Europe, ensuring widespread visibility and maximizing global audience reach.

CEO of the Saudi Broadcasting Authority and President of the Saudi Media Forum Mohammed bin Fahd Al-Harthi stated that this collaboration represents a significant milestone in fostering cultural and knowledge exchange between the authority and leading global media platforms.

Al-Harthi also emphasized the forum’s role as a vibrant media hub for exchanging expertise, forming impactful partnerships, and attracting thousands of media professionals and enthusiasts annually.

Al-Harthi added: “Our responsibility continues to grow, driving us to intensify our efforts and deliver superior initiatives through our strategic partnerships with leading international exhibitions and markets. This collaboration builds on our past achievements, such as hosting the MIPCOM Market, marking its first participation outside France. Today, we proudly include IBC among our esteemed partners.”

Mike Crimp, CEO of IBC, said: “IBC has always championed industry innovation worldwide, and our media partnership with FOMEX aligns with our shared goals of advancing transformative technologies in every region and sector of media and entertainment. As the (media and entertainment) industry continues to evolve on a global scale, we are proud to partner with FOMEX, a media gathering that nurtures this growth and encourages creativity and cooperation.”

The IBC stands as one of the foremost global events dedicated to broadcasting, media, and technology.

The Saudi Broadcasting Authority is set to organize the Saudi Media Forum and FOMEX in 2025.

The previous edition of the forum successfully drew over 30,000 visitors, while FOMEX attracted nearly 300 exhibitors.


Israel attacks kill 2 Gaza journalists in separate operations

Updated 08 May 2025
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Israel attacks kill 2 Gaza journalists in separate operations

  • Yahya Subaih died hours after posting photo of newborn daughter
  • Another local journalist, Nour Abdu, was killed in separate attack

LONDON: Palestinian journalist Yahya Subaih was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City on Wednesday, just hours after celebrating the birth of his daughter.

Subaih was among at least 11 people killed when Israeli warplanes struck a restaurant in the Al-Rimal neighborhood, west of Gaza City. Dozens more were injured in the attack, according to local media reports.

Another local journalist, Nour Abdu, was reportedly killed while covering an attack early on Wednesday morning at a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City.

That strike killed 16 people, according to officials at Al-Ahli Hospital, while strikes in other areas killed at least 16 others.

The Government Media Office in Gaza condemned what it described as the “systematic targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists,” and called on the international community to act.

In a statement, the office urged global powers “to put serious and effective pressure to stop the crime of genocide, protect journalists and media professionals in the Gaza Strip, and stop the crime of killing and assassinating them.”

Subaih, who worked with multiple media outlets, had shared a photo on social media just hours before his death, cradling his newborn daughter. “A little princess has brightened our world,” he wrote.

Footage circulating online shows Subaih wearing the same clothes he wore in the photo with his daughter.

His death adds to the growing number of media professionals killed in Gaza, which has become the most dangerous place in the world for journalists since Israel’s war on the enclave began on Oct. 7, 2023.

According to the Costs of War project by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, the current conflict is the deadliest ever recorded for journalists.

More than 170 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began, with some estimates placing the figure as high as 214.

The overall death toll from Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has surpassed 52,000 people, most of them women and children, with more than 118,000 injured, according to the territory’s health authorities.


Renowned journalists receive prestigious MCF Awards in Dubai

Updated 08 May 2025
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Renowned journalists receive prestigious MCF Awards in Dubai

  • Recipients include Asharq’s Nabeel Alkhatib, MBC’s Ali Jaber, The National’s Mina Al-Oraibi and social program presenter Sarah Dundarawy
  • The MCF recognizes the work of Arab, international media figures

DUBAI: Renowned media figures Dr. Nabeel Alkhatib and Ali Jaber were among the recipients of the prestigious May Chidiac Foundation Media Awards during a ceremony held in Dubai’s Al-Habtoor City on Wednesday.

Alkhatib, general manager of Asharq News, received the Antoine Choueiri’s Special Tribute for Lifetime Achievement Award, while Jaber, chief content officer of MBC and Shahid, took the MCF Special Recognition for Pioneering Leadership in the Media Industry Award.

Mina Al-Oraibi, editor-in-chief of The National, took the Excellence in Media Award.

Sarah Dundarawy, Saudi Arabia journalist and presenter at Al Arabiya’s social program “tafa3olcom”, received the Outstanding Media Performance award.

In its third edition in Dubai, the MCF recognized the work of distinguished Arab and international media figures.

The Exceptional Courage in Journalism Award for Life Sacrifices went to the late Marie Colvin, an American war correspondent for the Sunday Times, who was killed while covering the siege of Homs in Syria in 2012.

Pascale Bourgaux, a war reporter, author and filmmaker, received the Engaged Journalist Award.

The Vision in Content Development Award went to the Dubai-based BLINX, the first digital-native storytelling hub in the Middle East and North Africa.

Founded by journalist and former Lebanese Minister for Administrative Development May Chidiac, the foundation is a nonprofit organization.

It is dedicated to research and development in various media fields, including international affairs, women’s rights, democracy and social welfare.

It is also aimed at establishing Lebanon as a proactive player in the Middle East and global economy.


Apple’s plan to offer AI search options on Safari a blow to Google dominance

Updated 08 May 2025
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Apple’s plan to offer AI search options on Safari a blow to Google dominance

  • Apple could add OpenAI, Perplexity as future search options
  • The news slammed shares of Google-parent Alphabet, wiping off roughly $150 billion from its market value

Apple’s plans to add AI-powered search options to its Safari browser are a big blow to Google, whose lucrative advertising business relies significantly on iPhone customers using its search engine.
The news slammed shares of Google-parent Alphabet, which closed down 7.3 percent, wiping off roughly $150 billion from its market value.
The iPhone maker was “actively looking at” reshaping Safari, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, citing Apple executive Eddy Cue who was offering testimony at an antitrust case on Wednesday over Google’s dominance in online search.
Cue said searches on Safari fell for the first time last month due to users increasingly turning to AI, according to the source. Apple stock closed down 1.1 percent.
Google said that it continued to see growth in the overall number of search queries, including “total queries coming from Apple’s devices and platforms,” according to a statement posted on the company’s blog.
“People are seeing that Google Search is more useful for more of their queries — and they’re accessing it for new things and in new ways,” the company wrote.
Google cited voice and visual search features as contributors to total search volume growth. It was unclear whether Cue was using the same basis of comparison in his testimony when analizing types of searches.
Still, the Apple executive’s comments suggests that a seismic shift in search is likely underway, threatening Google’s dominant search business — a go-to advertising destination for marketers that has now become a target for US antitrust regulators, which filed two major lawsuits against the company.
Google is the default search engine on Apple’s browser, a coveted position for which it pays the iPhone maker roughly $20 billion a year, or about 36 percent of its search advertising revenue generated through the Safari browser, analysts have estimated.
Banning Google from paying companies to be the default search engine is among the remedies that the US Justice Department has proposed to break up its dominance in online search.
“The loss of exclusivity at Apple should have very severe consequences for Google even if there are no further measures,” D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said.
“Many advertisers have all of their search advertising with Google because it is practically a monopoly with almost 90 percent share. If there were other viable alternatives for search, many advertisers could move much of their ad budgets away from Google,” Luria said.
Google is not defenseless.
Written off as an also-ran in the AI race by critics after ChatGPT’s buzzy launch in late 2022, Google has reached into its deep pockets to fund its AI efforts and leverage its vast data trove.
The company introduced an “AI mode” on its search page earlier this year, looking to retain its millions of users from going away to other AI models.
It recently expanded AI Overviews — summaries that appear atop the traditional hyperlinks to relevant webpages on a search query — for users in more than 100 countries, and added advertisements to feature, boosting Search ad sales.
CEO Sundar Pichai said in a testimony at an antitrust trial last month that Google hopes to enter an agreement with Apple by the middle of this year to include its Gemini AI technology on new phones.
Apple’s Cue on Wednesday also said the company would add AI search providers, including OpenAI and Perplexity AI, as search options in the future, Bloomberg reported.
“(Apple’s plan) also shows how far generative search sites, such as ChatGPT and Perplexity have come,” said Yory Wurmser, principal analyst for advertising, media & technology at eMarketer.
That Google is willing to pay tens of billions of dollars to remain the default search engine shows how crucial the agreements are, Wurmser said.
For instance, ChatGPT in April reported seeing over 1 billion weekly web searches for its search feature. It has more than 400 million weekly active users, as of February


Meta blocks access to Muslim news page in India

Updated 08 May 2025
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Meta blocks access to Muslim news page in India

  • The affected Instagram account, @Muslim, has a page with 6.7 million followers
  • Meta blocked the account by legal request of the Indian government, says founder

WASHINGTON: Meta has banned a prominent Muslim news page on Instagram in India at the government’s request, the account’s founder said Wednesday, denouncing the move as “censorship” as hostilities escalate between India and Pakistan.
Instagram users in India trying to access posts from the handle @Muslim — a page with 6.7 million followers — were met with a message stating: “Account not available in India. This is because we complied with a legal request to restrict this content.”
There was no immediate reaction from the Indian government on the ban, which comes after access was blocked to the social media accounts of Pakistani actors and cricketers.
“I received hundreds of messages, emails and comments from our followers in India, that they cannot access our account,” Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh, the news account’s founder and editor-in-chief, said in a statement.
“Meta has blocked the @Muslim account by legal request of the Indian government. This is censorship.”
Meta declined to comment. A spokesman for the tech giant directed AFP to a company webpage outlining its policy for restricting content when governments believe material on its platforms goes “against local law.”
The development, first reported by the US tech journalist Taylor Lorenz’ outlet User Magazine, comes in the wake of the worst violence between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan in two decades.
Both countries have exchanged heavy artillery fire along their contested frontier, after New Delhi launched deadly missile strikes on its arch-rival.
At least 43 deaths were reported in the fighting, which came two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing a deadly attack on tourists in the Indian-run side of the disputed Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.
Pakistan rejects the charge and has warned it will “avenge” those killed by Indian air strikes.
The @Muslim account is among the most followed Muslim news sources on Instagram. Khatahtbeh apologized to followers in India, adding: “When platforms and countries try to silence media, it tells us that we are doing our job in holding those in power accountable.”
“We will continue to document the truth and stand out firmly for justice,” he added, while calling on Meta to reinstate the account in India.
India has also banned more than a dozen Pakistani YouTube channels for allegedly spreading “provocative” content, including Pakistani news outlets.
In recent days, access to the Instagram account of Pakistan’s former prime minister and cricket captain Imran Khan has also been blocked in India.
Pakistani Bollywood movie regulars Fawad Khan and Atif Aslam were also off limits in India, as well as a wide range of cricketers — including star batters Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan and retired players Shahid Afridi and Wasim Akram.
Rising hostilities between the South Asian neighbors have also unleashed an avalanche of online misinformation, with social media users circulating everything from deepfake videos to outdated images from unrelated conflicts, falsely linking them to the Indian strikes.
On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump called for India and Pakistan to immediately halt their fighting, and offered to help end the violence.
 


Netflix announces major revamp of app homepage

Updated 07 May 2025
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Netflix announces major revamp of app homepage

  • Redesign features enhanced personalization and improved recommendations, as well as vertical videos on mobile devices

DUBAI: Streaming giant Netflix will begin rolling out a major revamp of its TV app’s homepage next week.

The new design “is simpler, more intuitive, and better represents the breadth of entertainment on Netflix today,” the company’s chief product officer, Eunice Kim, said on Tuesday.

It includes a navigation bar at the top of the screen, rather than the current position on the left, and more-responsive recommendations while a user browses the app.

Netflix’s chief technology officer Elizabeth Stone said that in making these recommendations the service “will pull in more signals,” such as search history and the trailers watched by a user.

“And because everything will happen seamlessly in the background, you won’t even notice it happening — it will just be magically easier to find something to watch,” she added.

The overall design will be more minimalist and cleaner, providing all the relevant information about a title in one place so as to reduce “eye gymnastics” and help users make an “informed choice,” Kim said.

The mobile app is also getting an overhaul, as Netflix tests the use of the favored video format on social media: vertical viewing. The vertical feed will feature clips from movies and TV shows that users can browse and then click on to visit to a title’s home page.

Netflix has previously used artificial intelligence technology across the platform for features such as recommendations but now, with advances in generative AI, it aims to go a step further by showcasing titles in more languages and including chatbot-like functionality.

For example, viewers can use conversational phrases such as “I want to watch something scary but not too scary” to search for content.

“Believe it or not, that search phrase will actually yield results in the new experience,” said Stone.

The company is also investing further in its content-delivery network, Open Connect, which optimizes streaming globally across differing internet speeds.

“Open Connect has given us a really strong foundation and now we’re building on that foundation as we deliver a broader and more complex variety of entertainment, including live events and games on TV,” Stone said.

“Entertaining the world is hard but technology makes it easier.”