Lebanon’s Future TV, A Thing of the Past?

It seemed like a final nail in the coffin of Future TV (FTV) in September, the channel launched by slain Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri to promote his political vision but whose premier son was unable to carry that media mantle.

“The worst that can happen to a media organization is to go from a disseminator of news to the story itself,” wrote Faisal J. Abbas, editor-in-chief of the Saudi daily Arab News who began there as a cub reporter while a student in Beirut.

Arab News editor-in-chief Faisal J. Abbas (Abu-Fadil)

That was Future TV’s fate, and, unfortunately, this story didn’t have a happy ending, he added in an op-ed headlined “Al Mustaqbal is of the past, even if it returns” in the Lebanese daily Annahar.

Saad Hariri, Lebanon’s current prime minister and son of Rafiq, “suspended” operations at the station after endless months of haggling with staffers who hadn’t been paid their wages and benefits, and many of whom had gone into bankruptcy.

Future TV News building shuttered (Abu-Fadil)

But he issued a statement that FTV would be reshaped into something slimmer and resume broadcasting by next year although how, when, and under what financial circumstances, remained to be seen.

For former FTV veteran Diana Moukalled, a documentary producer, foreign correspondent and website top gun, it was a bittersweet memory she shared in a Facebook post.

Screen shot of Diana Moukalled Facebook post

Twenty-six years at Future Television…In recent years, and with the various financial and professional stumbling blocks, I tried to forge a separate professional and personal path in 2017 that led to the co-launching of the Daraj website. I spent more than half my life at the channel, I lived through its rise and suffered the bitterness of its breakup. Given my duties there, I managed to experience a wide swath of professional, political and personal work. I ascertain, despite everything that has befallen FTV that bids us farewell today, I never imagined myself working at another local Lebanese station or a foreign channel. Many tried to hint at being “bolder” and “more professional” but none of them provided the openness and diversity that was Future TV. I won’t go into the memories or the names, as they’re too numerous and precious to list in a Facebook post, but suffice it to say when I collected my belongings from my office at the news (department), I wasn’t gathering pictures, papers and things as much as I was mourning a channel I loved, and I owe those who oversee it a lot. Whatever the current political differences, FTV will always be part of me and of my identity.

Diana Moukalled at FTV back in the day (Abu-Fadil)

Employees had gone on strike in recent weeks, refusing to produce and broadcast newscasts, do their regular shows and carry on normal duties for lack of funding.

News staffers at the channel and its website had threatened to go on an open strike in 2016 after not having been paid in 10 months but were threatened with dire consequences, so they backed down.

In 2017, reports emerged that the channel’s bosses began laying off some 100 staffers and agreed to pay them off in four installments, provided they didn’t sue FTV on the grounds of arbitrary dismissal.

FTV newsroom in full operation (Abu-Fadil)

A former presenter and close ally of Hariri, Nadim Koteich, revealed in recent tweets he’d advised the prime minister, who had asked him to take over and run the channel, to shutter FTV in December 2016.

“I told him (US President Donald) Trump defeated traditional media through Twitter and (Turkish President Recep Tayyeb) Erdogan faced down a coup d’état with a speech on Face Time. 2016 is the year of the defeat of traditional media in the face of new media,” Koteich said.

Koteich was himself sidelined in 2016 when a regular satirical/editorial segment he presented called “DNA” touched a raw nerve after a series of biting commentaries, although he attributed the sacking to financial issues.

He has since been appearing on the Saudi-owned, Dubai-based Al Arabiya satellite channel.

FTV, founded in 1993, had been suffering for several years and there were severe cutbacks in programs. A number of news, talk show and variety program figures jumped ship to other stations or found greener pastures in areas such as politics.

Paula Yacoubian (Abu-Fadil archive)

One-time talk show host Paula Yacoubian, for example, became a member of parliament.

The Hariri Al Mustaqbal (Future) media umbrella included Radio Orient, Al Mustaqbal newspaper (also shut down), a website (totally revamped), an Armenian-language radio station and assorted and sundry outlets that were outgrowths of Hariri père’s Al Mustaqbal political movement forged to counter-balance existing parties, militias, factions and religious sects during and following the 1975-90 Lebanese Civil War.

While Hariri was recognized by many as leader of the Sunni Muslim community, and detractors accused his media outlets of reflecting pro-Western, pro-Saudi policies, those who worked at FTV prided themselves on being a diverse mix of journalists, producers, editors and staffers, unlike at other media organizations where they were considered pro-this or that religious sect or faction.

In 2008, pro-Iranian Hezbollah backers fired rockets at an older FTV building and Al Mustaqbal daily, torching satellite operations, threatening staffers at a newer site, effectively unplugging the station and burning its archives.

They claimed it had covered the “Party of God” unfairly, notably since the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri on Valentine’s Day 2005.

Screen shot of FTV archives on fire

Nobody was killed in the attacks but FTV had to broadcast from temporary quarters until it repaired its facilities and resumed normal operations.

In another incident, pro-Syrian partisans in Lebanon battered a Future News TV journalist leaving him crippled in hospital six months after their group contributed to the siege of Beirut with Hezbollah and other allies who temporarily shut down the channel.

Analysts tied that incident to a series of attacks on anti-Syrian groups ahead of parliamentary elections set for spring 2009 and as an international tribunal into the murder of Rafiq Hariri was to begin its deliberations in March of that year.

Hariri had initially made his fortune in Saudi Arabia and his family continues to have business interests there, although Saad has lost a good chunk of it in both the kingdom and in Lebanon through family inheritance squabbles, political intrigues and other mishaps.

What pained former staffers and devotees was having to write FTV’s obituary.

Rima Maktabi, who began as a weather girl, then a game show host, before turning to news at FTV, which launched her into a career at the pan-Arab Al Arabiya satellite channel and a brief stint at CNN, tweeted:

“It (FTV) resembled the #Lebanon we dreamed of, diverse, non-sectarian and a place wide enough to embrace our ambitions. Thanks for every opportunity given to me, thanks for the experience that contributed to what I am. #FutureTelevision thanks for the sweet and bitter days, they were golden. I can’t say goodbye, but thank you.”

Rima Maktabi at the Arab Media Forum in Dubai (Abu-Fadil)

Today Maktabi is Al Arabiya’s UK bureau chief.