Before UBN, there was MEB.
Before UBN, there was MEB. The Middle East Broadcasters Association (MEB) was founded, built, and operated by the same team now establishing UBN. For more than twenty years, MEB served as the Arab media industry’s first independent professional body — organizing regional exhibitions, publishing the industry’s professional journal, convening conferences and awards, and training hundreds of young media professionals. MEB also built and launched the Arab world’s first fully operational HD television station. The record speaks for itself. That track record is why UBN is not a proposal. It is a proven model — and ready to scale.
United BROADCASTING NETWORK
A Track Record of Regional Impact
A Record of Milestones
The following milestones are the proven foundation for UBN. Each represents a capability our leadership has already delivered at scale — across infrastructure, publishing, training, and regional convening. These achievements provide the experience and regional relationships required to establish UBN as a permanent institution for the Arab media industry.
Association
Media Exhibition
Conferences
Awards
Magazine
Reports
Training
1st HD Station
MEB Association
We conceptualized, launched, and operated MEB as the region’s first independent non-profit dedicated to the professional development of Arab broadcasters. More than an association, MEB became the place media professionals turned to for guidance, resources, and support.
Over more than two decades, MEB built a record of impact — developing professional training programs for hundreds of media practitioners, forging relationships among international and regional broadcasters, technology partners, and academic institutions, and providing knowledge resources the industry had not had access to before.
That experience — including the region’s many challenges — is precisely why UBN is being built on more solid bases: permanently structured and institutionally protected.
MEB Exhibitions
The MEB Exhibition was not a conventional trade show. It was a working professional environment where the industry gathered to experience new broadcast technologies in live operation, participate in hands-on training sessions, and connect emerging talent directly with employment opportunities.
Most significantly, the exhibition served as the launch platform for the region’s first fully operational HD television station. At a time when many broadcasters were still operating in analog, the industry gathered on that exhibition floor and witnessed HD broadcasting live for the first time — operated entirely by fresh graduates. Network CEOs who saw the quality of that broadcast asked a question that would change the industry: if trained graduates can run HD, why aren’t we?
Within four years, 80% of television stations across the region had their answer.
Regional Conferences
MEB conferences were designed differently from the outset. Rather than open panel discussions, each conference was organized around a single, defined subject. Sessions were assigned to distinguished academics and senior industry professionals, each contributing their expertise to a focused inquiry.
The result was not merely a gathering but the creation of a documented body of knowledge. Conference findings were published through the MEB platform, providing the industry with structured, expert professional reference material for the first time.
Awards
The MEB Gala Awards were built on a deliberate departure from the region’s established awards culture. Where the industry traditionally celebrated on-screen talent — actors, presenters, and personalities — MEB turned the spotlight on the professionals behind the camera. Directors. Editors. Engineers. Sound designers. Graphics artists. The creators whose craft determines the quality of everything the audience sees but whose contributions had never been formally recognized at the regional level. The Gala was also where MEB unveiled the Mebby — the association’s official award, designed and manufactured by R.S. Owens & Company, the same company behind the Oscar statuette. For the first time, the people who build the broadcast were the ones being celebrated — with an award built to the same standard as the most recognized trophy in the world.
The MEB Journal Built for the Region
The MEB Journal was founded on a clear strategic premise: media professionals in the region needed a publication that spoke directly to their specific conditions — not one adapted from a different market with different challenges.
Distributed free of charge and mailed directly to television stations across the region, the journal reached 12,000 professionals within its first six months. It spoke equally to CEOs and editors — covering station management, technical challenges, and industry direction with the same depth. That reach did not go unnoticed. The MEB Journal was covered by CNN and regional broadcasters including Al Jazeera, recognizing it as a genuine voice for an industry that had never had one of its own.
Its success revealed something equally important. Print has limits. The demand for specialized media knowledge was far greater than any publication alone could meet. That realization became the strategic justification for what came next: UBN — a dedicated broadcast platform built on the foundation the journal had already proven.
Putting the Region on the Global Map
MEB’s research program did more than inform the industry — it opened a new market.
Our landmark report, “The Rise of the Arab Broadcasting Industry,” was the first to map the region as a significant commercial opportunity for global technology companies. The impact was immediate: the National Association of Broadcasters hosted a dedicated session to present our findings at NAB Show in Las Vegas — the largest broadcast show in the world. It was the first time a session at NAB Show was focused exclusively on the Arab market.
The response went beyond the room. MEB and NAB signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding — a collaboration between two independent professional bodies that opened doors across the global broadcast industry and positioned the Arab media market as a serious player on the world stage.
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Training
Training for Operational Readiness
MEB’s training programs were built around one measurable metric: professional employment. In collaboration with leading universities, we delivered intensive, hands-on programs that introduced the latest broadcast technologies to over 300 graduates. The results were definitive: 85% of participants secured media employment immediately upon completion.
The excellence of our graduates earned international recognition. After only two months of training, participants were selected by NAB to operate their flagship HD exhibition in the United States — a testament to the quality of training our programs deliver.
MEB also organized an exclusive women’s boot camp in the United States, bringing together participants from six Arab countries for hands-on training in live sports production. The program received significant media coverage across the region.
This commitment to practical, high-level training is the foundation of UBN. We are scaling these proven programs across 22 Arab countries to ensure the region’s media workforce operates at global professional standards from day one.
First HD TV Station in the Middle East
The Proven Infrastructure: A Regional First
This was not a pilot. It was not a demonstration. It was a fully operational HD television station — built from the ground up, staffed by our graduates, and delivered at broadcast quality for the first time in the region’s history.
To achieve this, MEB assembled an unprecedented coalition. With Arabsat as the transmission backbone and 34 of the world’s leading technology manufacturers providing the infrastructure, we engineered a complete broadcast ecosystem. It was operated entirely by the professionals we trained — proving that our training models translate directly into operational reality.
The result was a permanent industry shift. The station delivered hours of live HD programming across the region. Within four years of this launch, 80% of television stations across the region had transitioned to HD. We did not mandate this change — we proved it was possible, demonstrated the technical viability, and provided the workforce to lead it.
This is the origin of UBN. Every claim we make about our ability to convene global partners and launch permanent broadcast infrastructure is fact-based. This station was not planned on paper — it was built, it was operated, and it changed the landscape permanently.
