Saudi "2nd channel" TV closedown

Time for a change and a visit overseas, to add a bit of an international flavour to my channel. I found this on one of my Betamax tapes (god knows how it got there).

Extreme apologies for the colour banding problem. This is what you get when you record in a SECAM colour machine and play it back on a PAL machine - the machine can decode the colour signals, but not the SECAM colour information. I think this tape was recorded by DXing (whereby TV signals can be received by long distances over terrestrial means - i.e. transmitter to aerial.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Saudi
• TV
• closedown
• sign
• off

[bigcherry99]

can someone please explain exactly what this channel is? where/when it broadcast?

.

....and why a saudi channel is in english????

[AidanLunn]

@bigcherry99 I believe this is from the satellite outpose of the Saudi TV service.

The channel began in 1982, and can be found under "Saudi T.V. Channel II" on Wikipedia.

[pookerville]

And since this is an Islamic country, censorship is prevalent in Saudi Arabia.

[AntarcticaTelevision]

@AntarcticaTelevision A bit like MBC's channels today , only that Saudi 2 featured more older programmes rather than the more recent films and series you can see on the MBC channels (and back then, MBC still had only one channel in Arabic, what today is known as MBC 1).

However, Saudi 2 relaunched around 2006, and became a news channel of sorts. It still broadcasts mainly in English, though.

[AntarcticaTelevision]

I have had access to Saudi TV2 since around 1999, when it still broadcast in analogue on the Arabsat 2A satellite at 26º East (and it still broadcast in SECAM, around 2001 it switched to PAL). I used to occasionally watch it since it had a lot of English-language imports with Arabic subtitles (albeit censored for religious sensitivities).