Chronicle of the Middle East and North Africa

Media in Oman

Media in Oman

Introduction

The first Omani-owned media outlets emerged on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, which was part of the Omani Sultanate between 1832 and 1964. Omanis such as Abu Muslim al-Bahlani established newspapers here as early as 1911, with the publication of al-Najah. Several other press titles followed but they would all become inactive after the end of Omani rule in Zanzibar.

During the reign (1932-1979) of ultra-conservative Sultan Said III bin Tamur, Oman’s own mass media environment was practically non-existent. In fact, Oman was the  last country in the Middle East to have its own radio station and daily newspaper.

Radio was the first mass media device to be put into operation in 1970, after Said’s son Qaboos’ palace coup, initially broadcasting for five hours per day, mainly to residents in the capital Muscat.

Then came print publications, with al-Watan being the first newspaper to be published in the sultanate in 1971. Television broadcasting began in 1974 and was initially restricted to Muscat but coverage was soon extended as infrastructure developed.

As the Omani media environment gradually grew, the government also sought greater regulation. Human rights organization Freedom House refers to the 1984 Press and Publications Law as ‘one of the most restrictive statutes of its kind in the Arab world’, allowing the government to censor any media material deemed politically, culturally or sexually offensive.

With the introduction of satellite television technology in the late 1980s, Omanis became exposed to a greater choice of media outlets and satellite channels soon became significantly more popular than the state-owned Omani broadcasts. Oman’s media environment became even more diverse in 1997, when the government allowed the sale of foreign newspapers and magazines that had previously been considered critical of Oman or the sultan.

However, this greater media openness for foreign publications contrasted with increased repressive measures enacted against the domestic press a year earlier. The 1996 Basic Law prohibited the publication of content that incites ‘public discord, violates the security of the state or abuses a person’s dignity or rights’.

Dial-up internet connections were introduced in 1997, but due to the country’s relatively high rural population and lack of infrastructure in certain areas, initial uptake was slow. An increase in service providers and broadband and wireless technology have since improved internet penetration.

Oman’s 21st-century media environment now includes more than 20 print publications as well as several television and radio stations, each with private and state-owned entities following the introduction of a limited number of private broadcasting licenses in 2004.

OMAN Internet Access 2005 2015 graph
Click to enlarge. ©Fanack ©Fanack CC BY 4.0
OMAN Internet Access 2005 bar
Click to enlarge. ©Fanack ©Fanack
OMAN Internet Access 2010 bar
Click to enlarge. ©Fanack ©Fanack
OMAN Internet Access 2015 bar
Click to enlarge. ©Fanack ©Fanack

Freedom of Expression

Oman’s media environment is not conducive to freedom of expression, and it ranks 125th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2016 World Press Freedom Index. The 1996 Basic Law guarantees freedom of expression and freedom of the press, but as with other Gulf states these guarantees are regularly overlooked or contradicted by other legislation. Journalists can be fined and sentenced to jail for criticizing the sultan, the ruling family or Islam.

The government maintains the right to close down any media outlet at will, and state-owned organizations continue to dominate the media thanks to their vastly superior resources. Self-censorship is common as journalists are required to obtain a licence, renewable each year, in order to work for an Omani media outlet. Writers and broadcasters who fall foul of the government are sometimes banned from operating.

With the increasing popularity of the internet, Omani authorities initially demonstrated a greater degree of tolerance towards criticism of government policies and officials online than in the traditional mass media. However, the 2002 Telecommunications Act means that the government can prosecute citizens for any message sent through any communications channel if it is deemed to ‘violate public order and morals’. The BBC also remarks that Omani authorities monitor private telephone calls, emails and internet chat rooms.

The Omani authorities also continue to arrest journalists publishing information contrary to the interests of the government. In August 2016, authorities ordered the closure of al-Zaman newspaper and arrested three of its journalists – two of whom have subsequently received jail terms – for publishing a report claiming that the chairman of the Omani Supreme Court had unlawfully influenced a trial verdict. The decision to close the newspaper was subsequently reversed.

Online bloggers and commentators are also pursued. In February 2016, former Omani diplomat Hassan al-Basham was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for a series of political and religious-orientated Facebook and Twitter posts that were considered to be insulting to God and the sultan.

In the same month, an artist named Sayyid Abdullah al-Daruri was handed a three-month prison sentence for stressing his Dhofari roots in a Facebook post. Dhofar is a politically sensitive region of Oman, which staged a rebellion in the 1960s and 1970s.

Television

Television in Oman was monopolized by the state for 30 years until a 2004 decree allowing the licensing of a private channel (as well as private radio stations). Oman’s domestic television environment consists of the following:

  • Oman TV – Otherwise known as Sultanate of Oman Television, the state broadcaster was established in 1974. The channel lost a significant amount of its audience share following the introduction of satellite television channels, which boasted superior production and studio facilities. Oman TV has tended to broadcast relatively few imported shows and instead produces a variety of Omani content such as drama series and soap operas. Its national news programmes are popular among Omani audiences and its state access means its news footage is often re-used by private broadcasters. The state also operates a second channel, Oman TV 2.

  • Majan TV – Established in 2009 as Oman’s first private television channel, owned by Halley Media Production in Muscat. The channel predominantly airs entertainment programming.

  • JaiHind TV – Established in 2011 as a franchise offshoot of the Indian channel of the same name. The channel caters to Oman’s sizeable Indian expat community.

Radio

Since the introduction of private radio stations in Oman, as well as the introduction of digital and internet streaming services providing greater access than FM bandwidths, the medium has experienced a steady increase in usage. The number of private stations has risen from none in 2004 to nine in 2015. The most significant stations in the sultanate are:

  • Radio Oman – Established in 1970, with limited broadcasting range and hours. From 1998 onwards, the station has provided 24-hour transmission to all areas of the country in Arabic. It broadcasts regional and international news as well as Omani educational and entertainment programmes. Today, Radio Oman consists of four stations, including the main Radio General service and several offshoots that provide content for certain interest groups and demographics. These are the religious station Radio Qur’an, the youth-orientated Radio Youth and Radio Foreign, which was founded in 1975 and broadcasts in English.

Following the introduction of private radio licences, private stations must adhere to the broadcasting regulations imposed by the state, including  strict controls and limitations over the number of news broadcasts and general content. As a result, the most successful private stations mainly broadcast music, such as the Arabic-language al-Wisal and Hala FM, and the more Western-orientated Hi FM and Merge FM.

Press

The press is significantly less popular than television as a source of news for Omanis, with total daily circulation estimated at 274,000 copies in 2010. Nevertheless, the press remains a popular outlet for advertising, which has enabled private publications to continue operating despite relatively low sales. The majority of readers are government employees and the staff of state-run companies since all government entities subscribe to newspapers.

State-owned

  • Oman Daily – Established in 1972 as the main state-owned publication in the country. It is published in Arabic and considered to be the second most popular Omani daily newspaper, behind the privately-owned al-Watan.

  • Oman Observer – Founded in 1981 by the government as an English-language daily newspaper.

Private

  • Al-Watan – Oman’s first newspaper, founded in 1971. It is considered the most popular daily publication in the country and has maintained a pro-government stance throughout its history. It also has an English-language sister newspaper, Oman Tribune, which began publishing in 2006.

  • – Established in 1975 as the first English-language daily publication in the country by Essa bin Mohammed al-Zedjali, a close associate of Sultan Qaboos. An Arabic-language sister publication, al-Shabiba, was established in 1993.

  • Al-Zaman – Arabic-language daily established in 2007. The newspaper has received a number of government suspensions in recent years, such as a one-month ban in 2011 for reporting on alleged corruption in the Omani Justice Ministry. The paper was again suspended from August to late December 2016, after publishing an article alleging corruption, which led to the imprisonment of two journalists. The website remains offline as of 1 January 2017.

  • Muscat Daily – English-language newspaper founded in 2009. It has largely adopted a pro-government stance but The Economist reported that the newspaper had given significant and unprecedented coverage to anti-government protests in 2011.

  • The Week – English-language free publication founded in 2003, The Week has gone on to become the most-read weekly publication in Oman. The newspaper was subject to legal action from the Omani government in 2013, after publishing a report on homosexuality in the country. A less popular Arabic sister version, al-Ousboua, was set up in 2006.

Social Media

Facebook has grown increasingly popular in recent years, with the percentage of the Omani population (around 5 million in December 2016, of whom 2 million are expatriates) with registered accounts increasing from 18.9 per cent of adults in 2012 to 27.9 per cent, or over 800,000 users, in 2014. This figure dwarfs the number of registered Twitter users in the country, although this has also increased from around 14,000 in 2012 to 38,000 in 2013.

YouTube was the second most popular website in Oman in 2014 and played a particularly prominent role in documenting the 2011 protests in the country, due to the relative anonymity afforded to its users.

PlatformPercentage of respondents who use platform
Facebook88.6%
WhatsApp 82.8%
YouTube 60.7%
Twitter48.8%
Instagram48.1%

Table 1. Most popular social media platforms by percentage of use. Source: Mediate Media Consumption Survey, 2015.

Facebook and Twitter were also important outlets during this time, but users of these platforms were pursued more aggressively by the Omani authorities. There are now few publicly accessible Facebook pages affiliated with anti-government causes in Oman, but a handful still refer to the 2011 protest movement or continue to highlight the cases of political prisoners detained in the country.

Online publications

Omani media outlets have embraced the online environment, with traditional state-owned and private outlets quick to establish websites and publish or broadcast content worldwide via the internet. Furthermore, a number of dedicated online publications have been founded.

Internet chat rooms and forums are commonly used in Oman. Sabla is described by the BBC as Oman’s ‘most popular political website’. It serves as an online chat room, forum and e-commerce hub. Here, a relatively high degree of criticism and dissent is tolerated by the Omani authorities who use Sabla as an indicator of public sentiment and a potential early warning system against popular unrest.

The government monitors all chat rooms active in the country and imposes temporary shutdowns if excessive dissent is voiced. Sabla is the dominant online forum in Oman, leading to the demise of other, less popular services such as Farrq and al-Harah.

For Omani bloggers and social media users, a distinction is often made by the Omani authorities between content published in English and Arabic. A greater degree of tolerance is typically afforded to English-language content, whereas criticism or offensive language published online in Arabic tends to be punished far more severely.

Latest Articles

Below are the latest articles by acclaimed journalists and academics concerning the topic ‘Media’ and ‘Oman’. These articles are posted in this country file or elsewhere on our website: