UAE edition debuts as IPO gets underway
Arab News, Saudi Arabia's leading English-language daily news paper will begin publishing in Dubai starting this month as its parent group, Saudi Research & Publishing Group (SRPG) launches an IPO.
SRPG is the largest publisher of newspapers and magazines in the Kingdom.
Content of the Emirati edition will be 70% Saudi-originated with the remainder focusing mostly on the UAE plus the other four GCC states.
The aim, according to group editor in chief Khaled Almaeena, is to produce a regional publication along similar editorial lines to the International Herald Tribune.
The move was prompted by the phenomenal number of daily hits on the Arab News website Almaeena told GMR.
"At the beginning of the Iraq war we averaged 3.1 million hits a day," said Almaeena.
"That has now leveled out at 1.4 million and the majority comes from the USA, then KSA followed by Israel and then the UAE," he added. "We are not here to compete with others. The decision was taken because there is a need in Dubai for a paper that reflects the opinions of the region."
The paper claims to be the most quoted Arab newspaper in the Middle East. Unlike other English-language publications, Arab News has a large number of Saudi nationals on its staff said Almaeena. The majority of journalists and columnists are Saudi women, he added.
The 31-year old morning paper with a claimed pan-Gulf circulation of 56,000 is published by Saudi Research & Marketing Group (SRMG) a subsidiary of SRPG.
Flagship title of the group is the Arab-language daily Asharq Al-Awsat with an ABC audited circulation of 236,000 January to June 2004.
© Gulf Marketing Review 2006
