''Al-Bernameg'' (, known in Egypt as ''El Bernameg'', pronunciation: lberˈnæːmeɡ literally "The Show") was a controversial Egyptian news satire program. The show was hosted by Bassem Youssef and was broadcast on the satellite channels

CBC CBC may refer to: Media * Cadena Baja California or Grupo Cadena, a radio and television broadcaster in Mexico * Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's radio and television public broadcaster ** CBC Television ** CBC Radio One ** CBC Music ** ...

, founded by GIS-affiliated businessman Mohamed El-Amin and OnTV Egypt owned by the United Media Services (UMS), a company owned by the Egyptian General Intelligence Service (Mukhabarat) since 2016. Later moved to Saudi-owned on the free-to-air channel

MBC Masr MBC Masr () is an Egyptian free-to-air television channel owned by MBC Group and United Media Services. The channel was launched during an official ceremony in Cairo on 16 October 2012, and began broadcasting on 9 November 2012. The channel se ...

and reruns are aired on

Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave"), commonly shortened to DW (), is a German state-funded television network, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the Federal Government of Germany. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite tele ...

; Bassem Youssef announced on 2 June 2014 that the show was cancelled. Its satirical style, willing to poke fun at powerful personages across the political spectrum, has led the press to compare it with ''

The Daily Show ''The Daily Show'' is an American late-night talk show, late-night talk and news satire television program. It airs each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central in the United States, with extended episodes released shortly after on Paramount+ ...

'' hosted by

Jon Stewart Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz, November 28, 1962) is an American comedian, writer, producer, director, political commentator, actor, and television host. The long-running host of ''The Daily Show'' on Comedy Central from 1999 to 20 ...

, which was the inspiration for the show. Bassem Youssef visited ''The Daily Show'' as a guest in June 2012 and April 2013, while Stewart, on hiatus from his own hosting duties, returned the favour on 25 October 2013. On 1 November 2013, the show was pulled from CBC over differences with the broadcaster. The suspension of the show raised questions about media freedom in Egypt following the

2013 Egyptian coup d'état The 2013 Egyptian coup d'etat or the Counter-revolutionary, Counter-revolution is an event that took place on 3 July 2013. Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi led a coalition to remove the democratically elected President of Egypt ...

. In early 2014, MBC MASR picked up the show, airing its first episode on 7 February 2014.

''The B+ Show''

Following the 18-day-protests of the Jan 25th revolution, ''The B+ Show'' was created by Tarek El Kazzaz and Bassem Youssef, as a political satire show commenting on the events and how the mainstream media presented them. Together they teamed up with Amr Ismail as Producer and Mohamed Khalifa as Director of a 5-minute episode for online viewing. ''The B+ Show'' was named after Youssef's blood type; B+, and was shot entirely in Youssef's laundry room with one table, one chair, one camera and a banner with amateur images of

Tahrir Square Tahrir Square (, ; ), also known as Martyr Square, is a public town square in downtown Cairo, Egypt. The square has been the location and focus for political demonstrations. The 2011 Egyptian revolution and the resignation of President of Egypt, ...

. For every five-minute episode, Youssef and his team used to watch up to ten hours of videos for research to help them write the script. Uploaded for the first time in May 2011, ''The B+ Show'' gained more than five million views in the first three months alone, on its YouTube Channel. Nine webisodes later, Egyptian channel ONTV offered Youssef to create a political satire TV show ''Al-Bernameg'', literally translating to "the show".

''Al-Bernameg'' Season 1

The show's move to Egyptian channel ONTV made it one of the first internet to TV conversion in the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

. The show premiered in Ramadan 2011, and became the platform for many writers, artists, and politicians to speak freely about the social and political scene. Season one of ''Al-Bernameg'' aired a total of 104; 30-min episodes and was produced by Qsoft Ltd.

''Al-Bernameg'' Season 2

Despite the great success of ''Al-Bernameg'' on ONTV, the team always aspired to be the first live-audience TV show of its genre in the Middle East. Having that vision in mind, Ahmed Abbas, the Chief Operations Officer of Qsoft and ''Al-Bernameg''’s Project Director, started working on taking this idea further to create a multifaceted brand for Al-Bernameg. In the summer of 2012, the team successfully reached a deal with Capital Broadcast Network (CBC) to air the new season of the show with the new format, moving it from ONTV's studios to the majestic building of Radio Cinema and Theatre, which is an exact replica of

Radio City Music Hall Radio City Music Hall (also known as Radio City) is an entertainment venue and Theater (structure), theater at 1260 Sixth Avenue (Manhattan), Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York C ...

in New York, accommodating 220 guests in total for every episode. ''Al-Bernameg'', which aired its premiere in November 2012, was the first to have a live audience in the Middle East and recorded one of the highest viewership ratings on both TV and Internet; with a combined viewership of around 120 million on YouTube alone. Radio Theatre, which is owned by Al-Ismailia for Real Estate Investment, underwent a massive renovation process to transform it into a live audience studio for the show while maintaining the aesthetics of the architecture and the interiors of the historical building. Under the leadership of the same Executive Producer, Amr Ismail, the team hired the production designer, Christopher George, and the lighting director, Mark Kenyon, of '' The X-Factor UK'' to design the new set of ''Al-Bernameg''. The second season of ''Al-Bernameg'' consisted of 29 episodes. The show gained tremendous success through its humorous yet bold criticism of former Egyptian President

Mohamed Morsi Mohamed Mohamed Morsi Eissa Al-AyyatThe spellings of his first and last names vary. survey of 14 news organizations plus Wikipedia in July 2012Amr Waked, in addition to a large number of Egypt's and the region's most popular music bands and performers, appeared on the show. ''Al-Bernameg'' also enjoyed diversity in its audience every week, including public figures such as

Hamdeen Sabahi Hamdeen Sabahi (, ; born 5 July 1954) is an Egyptian politician and journalist. He is a former presidential candidate and currently the leader of the Egyptian Popular Current and a co-leader of the National Salvation Front. An opposition act ...

Yosri Fouda Yosri Fouda ( ', ), is an Egyptian investigative reporter, author, and television host. He established Al Jazeera Media Network, Al Jazeera's office in London and was one of the star figures in the channel until he resigned in 2009. Fouda also wo ...

, Elissa,

Assala Nasri Assala Mostafa Hatem Nasri (; born 15 May 1969), commonly known as Assala (), is a Syrian singer. Early life and career Assala was born in Damascus, Syria to a middle class Arab family. Mostafa Nasri, Assala's father, was a revered composer a ...

Ziad Rahbani Ziad Rahbani (, born 1956) is a Lebanese composer, pianist, playwright, and political commentator. He is the son of Fairouz, one of Lebanon and the Arab world's most famous singers, and Assi Rahbani, one of the founders of modern Arabic music ...

and

Angham Angham Mohamed Ali Suleiman ( ; born 19 January 1972), known by the mononym Angham (), is an Egyptian singer, recording artist, and actress. Her debut was in 1987 under the guidance of her father, Mohammad Suleiman. Following her divorce from ...

. Soon after the show started airing, complaints were filed against it and its host, with accusations of insulting Islam, President Morsi and disrupting public order and peace. However, ''Al-Bernameg''’s team sustained its critical tone, risking the future of the show and holding on to the right of freedom of expression. Season two of ''Al-Bernameg'' aired a total of 29 60-min episodes.

''Al-Bernameg'' Season 3

In October 2013, CBC suspended the airing of ''Al-Bernameg'' season 2, claiming that “the show has not been abiding by the editorial policy of the network.” In February 2014, Al-Bernameg returned with its third season, on MBC Masr satellite channel with a second re-run on Deutsche Welle (DW). The show achieved unprecedented viewership ratings every week. Season three of ''Al-Bernameg'' aired 11 60-min episodes. In March 2014,

Nilesat Egyptian Satellites Co SAE or Nilesat (; or , ) is a company and the name of a series of Egyptian communications satellites. It was established in 1996 by the government of Egypt with the purpose of operating Egyptian satellites and their associ ...

announced that it was investigating jamming of broadcasts of ''Al-Bernameg'', credit for which had been claimed by an organisation known as the Egyptian Cyber Army. In April 2014, MBC announced that they would suspend broadcasting of the show until the end of May “to avoid influencing Egyptian voters’ opinion and public opinion” in the run-up to the

2014 Egyptian presidential election Presidential elections were held in Egypt between 26 and 28 May 2014. There were only two candidates, former Egyptian defence minister Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Egyptian Popular Current candidate Hamdeen Sabahi. El-Sisi won the election in a l ...

. In June 2014, Youssef announced the termination of ''Al-Bernameg'' where he said that the pressure on him, his family, and MBC had become too great.

Criticism

During its run and the period leading up to the 2013 Egyptian military coup, ''El Bernameg'', became a focal point for political satire and controversy. The show was seen to have played a prominent role in inciting and laying the ground for the Egyptian 2013 military coup against the country's first democratically elected government and supporting its aftermath crack down, killing of protesters and massacres. ''El Bernameg'' endorsed the media clampdown that followed, which included the arrests of several media personnel, despite these actions being carried out by the military without due process. The program notably celebrated the coup and its aftermath with a satirical song-and-dance number set to the tune of ' Old MacDonald'. The performance trivialized the army’s brutal and violent suppression of sit-ins and opposition to the coup, framing the Morsi government and the

Muslim Brotherhood The Society of the Muslim Brothers ('' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar, Imam and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Al-Banna's teachings s ...

as threat of 'terrorism' to the 'Egyptian people'. Additionally, anyone who opposed the coup was often labeled as 'non-Egyptian,' further deepening the polarization and marginalization of dissenting voices. This portrayal came after a year-long campaign on the show that many viewed as contributing to the

demonization Demonization or demonisation is the reinterpretation of polytheistic deities as evil, lying demons by other religions, generally by the monotheistic and henotheistic ones. The term has since been expanded to refer to any characterization of indivi ...

and

dehumanization upright=1.2, link=Warsaw Ghetto boy, In his report on the suppression of the Nazi camps as "bandits". file:Abu Ghraib 68.jpg, Lynndie England pulling a leash attached to the neck of a prisoner in Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse, Abu Ghr ...

of the Muslim Brotherhood. The aftermath of the coup saw widespread violence, including the killing of civilians and arbitrary arrests and torture. The show has consistently referred to the military coup as a "revolution", a framing that aligned with the perspective of the coup's leaders and helped legitimize it. Another contentious aspect of the show's coverage was its alleged role in dehumanizing and vilifying opponents of the coup and engaging in victim-blaming rhetoric. The program vilified regular Egyptians who supported the Morsi government, characterizing them as lesser citizens or internal enemies. The program supported anti-democratic, anti-liberal movement to exclude Islamists from public life, and ultimately to overthrow and replace the Morsi government with a military government. The program distributed petitions to the live audience during the show, calling for the overthrow of the democratically elected government. The show was also involved in spreading conspiracy theories, including claims that Qatar was 'buying' Egypt and that the Morsi government was 'selling' the

Pyramids A pyramid () is a Nonbuilding structure, structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a Pyramid (geometry), pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid ca ...

Suez Canal The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...

and parts of the country. This narrative was prominently featured in a ''satirical song'' on ''El Bernameg'', which mocked

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

’s alleged influence and its perceived economic hold over Egypt. Additionally, ''El Bernameg'' usually engaged in

quote mining Quoting out of context (sometimes referred to as contextomy or quote mining) is an informal fallacy in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning. Context may be omitted intentionally or ...

and

association fallacy The association fallacy is a formal fallacy that asserts that properties of one thing must also be properties of another thing if both things belong to the same group. For example, a fallacious arguer may claim that "bears are animals, and bears a ...

which helped lay the groundwork for supporting the military's actions, including the subsequent crackdown on dissent and the violence that followed, such as the Rabaa massacre, the biggest in modern Egyptian history.

References

External links

*{{youTube, channel=UCUvufBZoieEr1YOFhOMnzHw
Bassem Youssef 2013 IPFA Acceptance Speech
Arabic-language television shows Television shows set in Egypt Egyptian Crisis (2011–2014) News parodies Egyptian comedy television series ONTV (Egyptian TV channel) original programming Capital Broadcasting Center original programming