Al Arab News Channel

al-Arab News Channel
Launched	1 February 2015
Closed	1 February 2015
Owned by	Al-Waleed bin Talal
Country	Saudi Arabia
Language	Arabic
Broadcast area	Arab World Worldwide
Headquarters	Doha, Qatar

Al-Arab (Arabic: العرب‎) was an Arabic-language news channel which vowed to practice objective journalism. It was launched on 1 February 2015 and almost immediately shut down. The channel was owned by Saudi prince and entrepreneur al-Waleed bin Talal, and was based in Manama, Bahrain.

In July 2010, Prince Al-Waleed, owner of a stake in News Corporation, planned to collaborate with News Corp to launch a 24-hour Arabic-language news channel. After a year of deliberation, Al-Waleed announced on 13 September 2011 the launch of Alarab as a personal private venture. He said the channel's editorial stance would be "inspired by the recent political events that have transformed the region, with particular attention to be paid to freedom of speech." The channel was supposedly entirely privately funded, with Al-Waleed insisting that it would not receive instructions from the Saudi government. At the time of the launch, no mention was made of News Corp's involvement.

In December 2011, Manama, Bahrain, was chosen as the network's headquarters.Doha, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Beirut were also among the cities considered to host the network. Prince Al-Waleed retained close ties with the Bahraini royal family while his Kingdom Holding Company maintains a presence in the country through indirect investments in the banking sector.

Al-Arab was launched on 1 February 2015.

Al-Arab's regional competitors were Qatari-owned Al Jazeera and Saudi-government-owned Al Arabiya, along with BSkyB's Sky News Arabia. In a January 2012 interview, Al-Waleed described Al Jazeera as the "masses channel" while implying that Al Arabiya is the "government channel" among the two main news channels in the Middle East. He stated his goal for Al-Arab to "takes the centre’s point of view" between the two networks.

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