For some reason I’ve been blogging all about Mamnou’ channel, or the "taboo" channel, since its inception. First, came its launch announcement, then the "controversy," then further controversy, and now, the latest: The channel’s transmission has been halted. In an article published in The Jordan Times, the CEO of Jordanian Media City said Mamnou’ did not follow the rules:
"The channel’s owners had breached their contract by airing various films without legal permission,” Jordan Media City (JMC) CEO Radi Alkhas told The Jordan Times.
According to Al-Khas, the closing of the channel has nothing to do with its decision to air the controversial show Alshatat.
"We have no control over what is aired. All we care about is JMC’s reputation, and to allow a channel to broadcast copyrighted material illegally would have eventually subjected JMC to countless lawsuits."
However, Mamnou’ channel spokesperson Ibrahim Omar Albahri denied these claims, saying:
"We never broadcast anything without permission and were very surprised with the decision to ban the channel," Albahri said.
After reading these two opposing statements, I guess the truth lies somewhere in between.
Merry Christmas!
I’m actually in Gaithersburg, MD for Christmas, so I wish to you a very nice one!
Rudy Carrera
IT’s so sad to hear this news. I can’t judge that channel bcoz i havent seen any of its programs, but this willl definitely discourage any provate local TV channels in jordan from opening up
it seems like the owners of the channel dont know what their channel are airing … i’ve seen one of the movies on mamnou that are showing in the same time exclusively on showtime arabia …
also its unbelievable to air a movie while its still playing on cinema, how on earth they took license for that movie.
Jora Mall’s effect reached Jordanian TV channels 😉
I saw same cheap VCD-copy quality movies on the Mamnou’ channel. They Even aired the movie “The Wedding Crashers” 1 week after it was released in the Cinema in Amman, and it almost had the logo of SVC (Syrian Video Company) or something, that most translated illigal copies have the logo of.
I frankly believe that they should have been closed the moment they started to act cheap, and air copy-violated material, I won’t say that if I didn’t see it in my own eyes, they did air pirated material, as one would expect (and see until recently) from Yeman and Sudan TV.
Interesting. You’re probably right, the truth is probably somewhere in between what the two spokespersons said.
We need more details to be able to judge. But do we ever get access to details in Jordan? Of course not!
It is disapointing however to see that they actually forced it to shut down. Why couldn’t they just fine the company?
When they didn’t like Al-Shatat, they [responsible Jordanians, remember?] somehow found a way to talk some sense into the people in charge and got them to take the show off. This clearly shows that the owners of the tv station are people who can respond to requests. So now that the tv station actually breached some sort of legal agreement, why did the Jordan Media City suddenly assume that they won’t respond to requests and why didn’t they take it to the courts? Are our courts not good enough?
Like I said, we need more details, but when do we ever get details in Jordan?