MBC 1 (Middle East and North Africa)

MBC 1 is a free-to-air pan-Arab general television channel. It is owned by the MBC company MBC Group. Satellite transmission started from London in September 1991, making MBC 1 the first independent Arabic satellite TV station, with an estimated audience of more than 130 million people around the world. In 2022 parent company MBC moved its headquarters to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
By the mid-2000s, MBC 1 cemented its position as the leading Arabic variety channel.
One of its most popular and controversial shows, and the one generating the highest advertising rates, is Kalam Nawaem ("Speech of the Soft"), a show led by several women that addresses women's issues and taboos, including terrorism, domestic violence, polygamy, divorce and women's suffrage.
MBC 1 has secured a deal to show 32 Indian movies after its initial broadcast of Jodhaa Akbar, which was a huge success and was appreciated by the public as well as the advertisers. This, however, ended up on MBC 1 and MBC Drama instead, due to tying in the Bollywood films as part of the dubbed films package so that these films can be watched by the Arab audience as well.
MBC 1 HD launched on 1 July 2011.
From 24 March to 22 June 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, MBC 1 used an on-screen DOG depicting its logo encased inside a house.
MBC 1 rebranded in 2012 to bring a new set of idents, idents are now 9 seconds long, unlike 2009's rebrand, which had 20 seconds long idents. In this rebrand, there are menus and bumpers (idents). The menus are used for next tags, which have continuity announcers, bumpers are used to "split" between breaks and programmes, and are used at the end of any programme. Focusing on a "cube-ish" theme, the channel has a simple, but rather stylish, look.
MBC1 airs approximately one movie a day late at night, mostly Arabic movies.
After debuting in October 2009, MBC 1 was scheduled to make a weekly broadcast every Thursday, of a selection of highly noted Hollywood films and other acclaimed films that are dubbed rather than subtitled in Arabic. Depending on the nature of the film genre, the dubbing is either in standard Arabic, or features a dialect. Oddly, the selection of dubbed films are the type of films that naturally don't get broadcast on MBC Max due to their extreme violent nature.
Starting from January 9, 2010, MBC 1 now features one dubbed film at the usual timings every day of the week, including Fridays, which now features MBC 1's new Bollywood films package. Any film outside of Thursday will retain to comply with MBC1's standardized content, but they can still also be viewed in their original languages. The currently known Thursday selection of August 2010 includes:
(The regular schedule is to be on hiatus after August 11, due to the expansion of the overall film schedule during the month of Ramadan.)
Around April 2010, with MBC 1's increased library of dubbed films, MBC apparently are now giving more random schedules for films with Arabic dubs, alongside the usual schedules. This is most likely due to the increased popularity and interest in the dubbing of American films.
Despite the fact MBC created this package for the entertainment of watching dubbed Hollywood films, nevertheless they gave their viewers a choice of switching audio tracks if they want to watch these particular films in their original English tracks, as well as adding subtitles for the viewers who can support this feature. It is currently unknown if this package is permanent. It is likely all the dubbing was produced in-house, which would most likely be the reason why MBC retains exclusivity to these dubbed films/audio tracks as they do not appear anywhere else, and it seems apparent the dubbing was primarily performed by Syrian voice-actors. This limit, however, is lifted in MBC Drama's new dubbed films package.
After debuting on January 15, 2010, MBC 1 is scheduled to make a weekly broadcast, every Friday, of a selection of Hindi films. However, these films will be primarily available dubbed in Arabic for MBC 1's majority Arab audience. The currently known selection of August 2010 includes:
(The regular schedule is to be on hiatus after August 11, due to the expansion of the overall film schedule during the month of Ramadan).
This package is partially jointed with MBC 1's dubbed films package. Which means despite the fact MBC created this package for the entertainment of watching dubbed Bollywood films.
Beginning from this Ramadan, MBC1 is playing movies without commercial breaks, although, some movies may have a one-minute break every once in a while.