"There are a few research agencies that offer basic information about the viewership volume and segmentation across the Middle East; however such analyses remain a rough estimate," according to Alberto Chahoud, managing director of Ace Worldwide, an advertising agency and media buyer based in Dubai.
It's the nitty-gritty Nielsen spreadsheets that fine-tune programming decisions in the U.S. market; cold hard numbers are not inclined to change to accommodate buyers cultural preconceptions. While the Nielsen system has its share of critics, it's unquestionably far better than the mass of semi-random surveys that currently gauge Middle Eastern viewership.
"What you have are basically some marketing groups who pass themselves off as pollsters, who will, in effect, tell the networks what they want to hear," says James Zogby.
Many established players are perfectly happy to remain with the status quo, but some in the region are already talking about instituting automated and real-time measurement techniques, Chaoud said.
The soaring value of the regional television market makes it virtually inevitable that better measurement systems will be implemented, sooner or later.
Industry analysts expect cable and satellite reception in the Middle East and North Africa to reach more than 40 million homes -- about two thirds of all televisions -- by 2010, according to Janet Fine.
Advertising revenues are expected to climb from about $2 billion to $3 billion during that time. In Dubai, the government built a tax-free zone and industrial park known as Media City, which has become a bustling hub for semi-independent and fully private broadcasters to produce their wares. Last year, Syria launched its own version of Media City in Damascus.
The more money that flows, the greater the pressure for scientific measurement. When the Nielsen boxes finally arrive, they will almost certainly change the Middle East forever. An anonymous, transnational aggregate of viewers can do a lot more than vote contestants off "The Farm." A mass of viewers, voting via remote control, can't be rounded up and held accountable for its collective taste.
The biggest fly in the ointment, ironically, is the threat of an expanded regional war, even one idealistically intended to "promote freedom."
Syria may not be an attractive political partner, but the programming emerging from its borders is doing more to Westernize the Middle East than all the carrots and sticks the diplomatic process can offer. Conversely, a war involving Israel could create a much more receptive audience for Iran's anti-Semitic conspiracy fare.
In the end, the wise choice might be to just let the revolution be televised after all.
J.M. Berger is editor of INTELWIRE.com.
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