One year after going on the air, OTV's future is as uncertain as the political fortunes of its mascot and spiritual leader, Free Patriotic Movement head Michel Aoun.

Zahir Abboud, writing in As-Safir, lamented that the Change and Reform channel's "promise of 'change' has not been fulfilled, at least until now."

Abboud's critique was both pointed and broad. He lambasted OTV's programs, especially its flagship news talk shows "Fi Tafaasil" and "Fawaasil," for lacking unique identities or direction. Abboud also had disparaging words for OTV's coverage of the Doha meetings, describing reporter Natalie Isa as a mere "tape recorder" for Jean Aziz, the station's news director and an important FPM official.

Arab media analyst Habib Battah remarked to NOW Lebanon, "I don't think the channel has made a big impact. In the beginning, there was a lot of excitement about the channel, but a lot of its programming remains very developmental."

Early promise

OTV started out in October of 2006 with an initial capitalization of over $2 million, according to the Private Placement Memorandum announcing its initial stock issue. The plan was to draw in up to $40 million dollars by selling stock, a revolutionary step in a country whose media outlets are generally funded from single, often political, sources. "What is truly unfortunate is that OTV was meant to be democratic television," said Charles Chuman, a media and political consultant working in Beirut. According to OTV's investment website, there were some 7,000 shareholders with stakes ranging from less than $1,000 to over $10,000 in May of 2007, which would have put the company's capitalization at anywhere between $4 million and $23 million.

The feeling of community ownership is obvious among FPM and OTV supporters, who enthusiastically offer praise as well as suggestions for improvements. The number one conversation on OTV's online forum for the past two months has been "Support OTV, help them find a solution."

Much of those conversations have dwelt on the conspiracies against OTV, however. OTV supporters point to an advertising "cartel" run by media mogul and Lebanese Forces supporter Antoine Choueiry, who they say is boycotting OTV and starving them of advertising dollars. Quite simply Choueiry is a force to be reckoned with. Jihad Bitar, general manager of Comtrax Solutions, an Arab media consulting firm in Beirut, told NOW Lebanon, "You always go through a media buyer [to sell advertising]; it's not just for Lebanon but for the whole Arab world. The leading media buyer in the Middle East being Antoine Choueiry; he's the media buyer for LBC."

Aziz himself, in an interview with Euronews this past weekend, noted the lack of ad spend heading in OTV's direction. But advertising, while always welcome, is not necessarily a make-or-break component of Lebanese TV stations' bottom line. Bitar estimated the total advertising market in Lebanon, including print media, radio and billboards, at $80-90 million. Battah explained, "These channels aren't really basing their projections and their planning on revenues from advertising. The advertising market is very small for Arab TV in general."

So what's the problem?

"The problem is not about money, of which they had enough to start a phenomenal station, but rather the management. Aoun ( pictured with Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah) decided to appoint loyalists to run the channel, and they have yet to prove their competence," said Chuman.

Much like the organization of the FPM itself: Roy Hachem, head of OTV, is Aoun's son-in-law, and the higher echelon's are all close to Aoun. Despite early and repeated promises of unbiased coverage, data provided by Bitar's Comtrax Solutions showed OTV giving March 8 figures much more coverage (47.7%) than unaffiliated (30.3%) or March 14 figures (22.0%). Michel Aoun naturally had much more coverage than on other stations, while figures like Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Kataeb President Amine Gemayel and LF leader Samir Geagea all received much less coverage than on other stations.

Chuman lamented, "Wealthy and middle class Lebanese in Lebanon, but especially abroad, poured their savings into it and are now watching a junk channel as bad as the government funded programming available on Arab satellites."

Over and above any political bias, Battah remarked, "I wouldn't say it hasn't really broken into competing with the big channels. That's quite obvious from the production quality." OTV personnel refused to comment for the story. Aziz, however, when contacted by NOW Lebanon would only say, "Everything is going perfectly. That is all I will say."

OTV's early promise so far remains unfulfilled. Battah noted a real need for objective journalism of the kind prominently touted on OTV websites and promotional material, while its formula of distributed ownership holds real hope for a reformed Lebanese media market. But as long as the station remains so completely in hoc to the FPM political machine, the chances that anyone but hardcore Aoun supporters will continue to want to buy in - literally or metaphorically - remains to be seen. It seems the prospects for real change and reform on this Lebanese channel at least, is still a long way off.

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