Watch Non StopTwo layers: pan-Arab and national
Arabic-language television has two layers that are worth separating before you start. The first is the pan-Arab networks, broadcasting in Modern Standard Arabic to the whole region and to the diaspora. Rolling news channels such as Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and Sky News Arabia belong here, and they have long run official live streams on the open web.
The second layer is national television: public and private channels made for one country, in that country's dialect, with its own news agenda, talk shows and drama. This is where a Tunisian, an Egyptian or an Iraqi viewer abroad finds home, and it is the part that general search engines serve worst.
The regions, and what each is known for
- The Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania). National public channels, private general channels and a strong tradition of political talk shows. French appears alongside Arabic on many of them.
- Egypt. The historical centre of Arabic-language entertainment: talk shows, drama and film channels with an audience far beyond the country.
- The Levant and Iraq. A dense news and current-affairs offer, with many channels carrying a clear editorial position. Worth watching in pairs.
- The Gulf (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman). Well-funded public broadcasters, sports channels, and religious broadcasting watched worldwide.
On Watch Non Stop these appear as separate entries on the country pages, with regional groupings where a channel addresses several countries at once.
What is reliably live
News
News is the strongest category. Pan-Arab and national news channels broadcast around the clock and stream continuously, so the live marker is almost always on. The news category counts 1 152 channels on air across all languages as this page was built.
Religious broadcasting
Continuous Quran recitation channels and live broadcasts from the holy sites are among the most watched Arabic-language streams anywhere, and they are transmitted without interruption. They sit in the faith category, alongside Christian and Hindu broadcasting.
General and entertainment channels
National general channels usually stream their own productions: news bulletins, morning shows, talk shows, some drama. Imported films and series are often cut out of the online stream for rights reasons, which is why a channel can show a holding card for an hour and then return.
Sport
Several countries have public sports channels that stream studio programmes and domestic competitions. Top-tier international football is held by subscription broadcasters and is not part of the free layer. The piece on free live sports sets out where the line is.
When to watch
Schedules follow local time, and the Arab world spans several time zones, from the Atlantic to the Gulf. The main evening bulletin and the talk shows that follow it are the heart of the day. If you are watching from Europe or the Americas, the evening there falls in your afternoon or late morning.
Ramadan reshapes everything. It is the high season of Arabic television: the year's major drama series are released then, schedules shift towards the night, and religious programming expands. It moves about eleven days earlier each year, so it is not tied to a season.
Searching in Arabic or in Latin letters
Channels are listed under the name they give themselves, and many carry both spellings. If a search in Latin letters returns nothing, try the Arabic name, or open the country page and read the list: it is short enough to scan, and it will show you channels you did not know existed. The TV Guide search matches both forms where the channel publishes them.
Watching from abroad
Official live streams on the major video platforms are generally available worldwide, which is what makes them so useful to viewers living outside their country of origin. A few broadcasters restrict some programmes by territory. When that happens the stream is blocked at the source, and no directory can or should work around it. An alternative from the same country is usually one click away on the channel page.
A note on editorial lines
Many channels in the region are owned by, or close to, a state or a political current. That does not make them less worth watching; it makes them worth watching with that in mind. The most instructive habit is to put two channels from different capitals on the same story in the multiview wall of the Console.