LBC creates ‘sex talk’ TV problems

Chris Forrester

The past few years have seen many of the more usual taboos lifted from Arabic television stations. Chat shows now seem to compete with one another for the title of ‘most audacious’ programming, but the normally dependable LBC-SAT channel has perhaps over-stepped the line with one show.

‘Bold Red Line’ featured a Saudi man, who worked for the Saudia airline, openly boasting about his sex life in the normally ultra-conservative country. Worse, the show is pitting Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, who controls the station, againsthis family members.

The Saudi man is known, has been named and was reportedly in hiding fearing for his life. Fresh reports say he was arrested last Friday. Many of his fellow-citizens are calling for him to be publicly stoned, such is the perceived severity of his crimes. The 32-year-old told viewers to the station that he simply left his Bluetooth-equipped mobile phone on ‘discoverable’ and then followed up the interest that flowed his way from females.

LBC boss Pierre Daher is declining all comment on the show, but two other men who took part in the programme have been arrested, while a fourth fled to Morocco, local newspapers cited Saudi police as saying.

A 5-minute clip of the show was available on YouTube, and achieved some 430,000 downloads, but has now reportedly been blocked.

LBC is normally famous for its more mundane annual Star Academy talent-search show. But Prince al-Waleed, who owns some 85% of LBC-Sat, is brother to Prince Khalid bin Talal, who has frequently – and publicly - criticised al-Waleed over the past few months. The more liberal brother is now suffering something of a backlash from Saudi Arabia, and there are calls for LBC’s local offices in the Kingdom to be closed and thus directly affecting LBC’s finances from advertising.