Al Sharqiya

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**Al-Sharqiya**

Type	Satellite television network
Country	Iraq
Availability	Middle East
Owner	Saad Bazzaz
Launch date	2004
Website www.alsharqiya.com/

For the Egyptian governorate, see Sharqia Governorate.

Al Sharqiya ("The Eastern One") is Iraq's first privately owned satellite channel owned by the London-based Iraqi media tycoon Saad Bazzaz, a former head of radio and television under the Saddam Hussein regime until he defected in 1992.^[1] The station was launched in March 2004 and began regular transmission on 4 May 2004.

Al Sharqiya now has been gaining a growing audience with its mixture of popular current affairs, satire and comedy shows poking fun at the new Iraq.^[2]

The satellite channel with the greatest reach in Iraq, according to a June Ipsos-Stat poll, is the Saudi-owned news channel Al Arabiya with 41 percent reach, followed by private Iraqi satellite channel Al Sharqiya at 40 percent. ^[3]

Sharqiya's director says his current staff of 100 hopes to capture a wide audience by using political comedy and the kind of impartial news coverage unheard of during decades of rule by ousted head of state Saddam Hussein.^[4]

On 1 January 2007, the Iraqi government ordered the station closed on grounds of inciting sectarianism as in the days after the 30 December 2006 execution of Saddam Hussein, one of its well-known news readers was wearing black mourning clothes. As Al-Sharqiya broadcasts from Dubai, it is unclear what effect this order will have. ^[5]