Egypt's independent media outlets face closures
A dip in profits is pushing Egyptian media institutions to become government mouthpieces, negatively impacting their content.
CAIRO — Financial crises are threatening the Egyptian media, be they private satellite TV stations, national TV stations or private and national newspapers.
As a result, several popular shows have been cut short, while Modern Sports, Mehwar 2, Mehwar Drama and several religious channels have been shut down. Producers and hosts have been dismissed and salaries slashed. Private newspapers suffered the same fate, while the governmental sector represented by the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) incurred losses estimated at 3.6 billion Egyptian pounds (around $500 million) for the 2013-14 fiscal year. Its debts amounted to around 20 billion Egyptian pounds (around $3 billion). Several national press institutions are in financial crisis, with accumulating debt and continuous losses.
A drop in advertising and increasing salaries and debt seem to be at the root of the problem.
There have been calls to privatize the media in Egypt, mainly by businessman Naguib Sawiris who, in an Al-Akhbar article published Dec. 20, 2014, made the case for auctioning off several TV stations owned by ERTU and using the revenue to pay off the media sector’s debts and mitigate losses. In the same article, Sawiris criticized state-run TV channels and described them as government mouthpieces that now only exist in totalitarian states.
