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ARABIC TELEVISION

Start an Arabic TV channel, after the satellite dish.

A 24/7 channel with dramas and talk on a schedule, Quran in the morning, a Ramadan grid built ahead, and Arabic rendered right to left, natively. On the web player and the living-room TV, delivered from 330+ cities.

Step by step

How to start an Arabic TV channel

The audience spans Dearborn, Toronto, London, Paris and Sydney, and the dish that used to serve it is disappearing from the balconies. The replacement is now a browser tab.

  1. Build the library you have rights to

    Your own productions, community coverage, licensed dramas, devotional recordings and talk shows go into the library, tagged by series and dialect so the guide reads like a listings page.

  2. Grid the week for your community

    One schedule serves Dearborn, Toronto, London, Paris and Sydney. Anchor the evening block for your largest region, repeat it across the others, and let devotional mornings and music overnights carry the rest.

  3. Put Arabic on screen, right to left, natively

    Lower thirds, tickers and titles render RTL correctly with your own fonts uploaded on higher plans. The channel should read like Arabic television from the first frame.

  4. Prepare the Ramadan grid before the month

    Build the seasonal schedule ahead in the browser, premiere the new programming after iftar hours for your main region, and switch the grid in and out with the calendar. Cover community events live over RTMP or SRT the rest of the year.

The broadcast week

What runs on an Arabic channel.

Drama is the loyalty, talk is the pulse, and Ramadan is when everyone watches at once.

Drama

Musalsalat, where rights allow

Dramas anchor loyalty, and Ramadan premieres anchor the year. Run licensed serials in fixed nightly slots, let the guide name tonight’s episode, and repeat the block for the region that slept through it.

Talk & community

The conversation in your dialect

Talk shows, community affairs, cooking and lifestyle programming made for your viewers, in the Arabic they actually speak at home. This is the programming the pan-Arab satellite networks will never make about your city.

Devotional

Tilawat and the daily rhythm

Quran recitation opens the day, religious talks take their evening slots, and the devotional grid deepens in Ramadan. Hijri date and daily adhan graphics, generated automatically for your channel’s city, are arriving shortly. A channel built primarily around the masjid runs the same way, with the prayer calendar driving the grid.

The season

Ramadan, built ahead

The month the whole audience watches at once. Seasonal grids are built in advance and switched in with the calendar: drama premieres, extended devotional blocks, and Eid programming to close it out.

The details

What it takes, in practice

Starting an Arabic TV channel takes a rights-clean library, a weekly grid built in a browser, and an encoder for everything live. Playout, graphics, the programme guide and worldwide delivery run in the cloud on the Cloud Playout plans, from $254 per month with unlimited viewers. It is the Arabic-language shape of a FAST or linear channel, and a channel with content ready can be on air the same day.

From the dish to the smart TV, without losing either

Arabic television abroad grew up on satellite: the dish on the balcony was how the language stayed in the house. That audience is migrating to smart TVs and phones, and the second generation never pointed a dish at anything. A streaming channel meets both where they are: a web player and casting for the living room, mobile for everyone else, and if a transponder is still part of your distribution, CBR SRT and RIST outputs can feed the uplink from the same playout. One schedule, both worlds; the full migration path is covered in the satellite to streaming guide.

Right-to-left is native here, not a workaround

Arabic is named in the graphics spec: lower thirds, tickers and titles render right-to-left correctly on every plan, with custom fonts uploaded on higher plans so the channel carries its own face. The playout engine treats RTL as a first-class citizen, which any operator who has fought a left-to-right ticker with Arabic text will recognize as the difference between broadcasting and apologizing.

The audience is scattered; the numbers are not

Delivery is unlimited on every plan from 330+ cities, so Ramadan viewing peaks cost the same as a quiet week, and the city-level map shows exactly which communities watch, hour by hour. For the halal brands, umrah travel agencies, remittance services and local businesses that court this audience, delivery-confirmed ad counts turn that map into a rate card.

Related guides

If the channel is primarily religious, start with the Islamic TV channel guide. Sibling guides cover Hindi, Bangla, Urdu, Tamil and Punjabi channels, and the same engine runs them all.

EVERY CHANNEL INCLUDES
Questions

Arabic channels, answered.

How much does it cost to start an Arabic TV channel?

Plans start at $254 per month billed yearly, per channel, with unlimited viewers and worldwide delivery included. No contract, cancel anytime, and a 7-day money-back guarantee on the first purchase. A single advertiser, an umrah travel agency or a halal grocer, typically covers the month.

Does the channel handle Arabic script properly?

Yes, natively. On-screen graphics support right-to-left and multi-script text with Arabic named in the spec, so lower thirds, tickers and titles render correctly out of the box, and higher plans add custom font upload so the channel can carry its own typography rather than a system default.

Our community still watches satellite TV. Why start a streaming channel?

Because the dish is where your audience was, and the smart TV is where it is going. A streaming channel plays in a web player, casts to the living-room TV via Chromecast and AirPlay, and reaches the second generation that never installed a dish, with AI subtitles on higher plans letting them read in English what the channel speaks in Arabic, and translate-and-dub on the Studio plan going further still. And the two are not exclusive: CBR SRT and RIST outputs are available for satellite contribution, so the same playout can feed an uplink if you keep a transponder.

Do we need rights for musalsalat and films?

Yes, licensed like any content, and platforms check. The big pan-Arab drama catalogs are tightly held, so build the durable base on what you can own or license directly: your own productions, community coverage, talk and cooking shows, devotional programming, and independent producers you can actually reach. Add licensed drama blocks as written agreements arrive.

Which Arabic does the channel broadcast in?

That is a programming decision, and the schedule can hold more than one answer. Many channels run news and formal programming in Modern Standard Arabic and entertainment in the dialect their community actually speaks, whether that is Levantine, Egyptian, Gulf or Maghrebi. Know who your channel is for and let the grid reflect it.

What happens to the schedule in Ramadan?

Ramadan is the season Arabic television is built around: new dramas premiere, viewing peaks after iftar, and the whole grid changes. Seasonal schedules are built ahead in the browser and switched in when the month arrives, then switched back after Eid, and the analytics show hour by hour how viewing moves through the month.

Can we run Quran and Islamic programming alongside general content?

Yes, and most Arabic channels do: tilawat in the early morning, general programming through the day, religious talks in their evening slots, and a fuller devotional grid in Ramadan. Channels built primarily around the masjid run on the same engine, with the prayer calendar driving the grid.

How does an Arabic channel make money?

Arabic-speaking communities are served by advertisers who struggle to reach them anywhere else: halal food brands, umrah and hajj travel agencies, remittance services, telecom, real estate and immigration practices. Server-side ad insertion is included on every plan: bring your own advertisers, keep 100% of the revenue, and pay a flat $1 per 1,000 delivery-confirmed impressions. Sponsor graphics and house ads cost nothing.

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Your channel can be live today.

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