Filming of Jordanian TV show Ain Al Habab. Photo: Mario Atallah/NTV

Mario Atallah, Producer of the Lebanese NTV youth programme 16/24, describes the highligts of working together with peers in Jordan and Syria as part of IMS’ national broadcaster exchange programme

By Mario Atallah, Lebanese NTV

When we first heard about this exchange between our three countries Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, I was very excited. Myself and six other members of the Lebanese youth programme "16/24", Woroud Al Khazali from the "Ain Al Shabab" youth show in Jordan and Amjad Touma from the "Jilouna" show in Syria spent three days together in each country.

International Media Support's national broadcaster exchange programme enables broadcasters from Lebanon, Jordan, Syria to visit eachother's countries and share content and techniques. The exchange aims to strengthen ties between the broadcasters and raise intercultural knowledge, prevent stereotyping and further public debate in the three countries.

Vox Pop with Jordanian university students

On arrival in Jordan, we met our Jordanian colleagues in a Lebanese restaurant, an effort on their part to make us feel at home. We discussed some of the subjects we wanted to cover for our show during our visit such as tourism in Jordan and homosexuality in Jordan. However, due to our short stay limiting the time available for in-depth research, we decided on a Vox Pop segment in a Jordanian university instead, asking students what they knew and thought about Lebanese youth, the social life of the youth in Lebanon, and their own experiences in Lebanon.

We shot the Vox Pop at "Petra University" talking to students of different nationalities like Jordanians, Iraqis, Palestinians and the Khaliji's about Lebanese youth. We had a segment full of very beautiful and honest answers. Some students said "We love the youth there because they know to live their life perfectly, we envy them", "they have the freedom that we do not have maybe". One young Lebanese man living in Jordan said; "There is no difference between the Lebanese and the Jordanian youth. Both of them do what they want to do without any difficulties." 

We also visited national Jordanian Television in their Media City of Jordan where our Jordanian colleagues shared rushes of the Museum of the Old Cars owned by King of Jordan, material which we used for our programme in a segment about cars, catering to the Lebanese youth’s love of cars.

Same subjects appeal to Jordanian youth

We watched our Jordanian colleagues produce their Ain Al Shabab show and then we shot our own segment about their show for our programme 16/24. What really surprised us positively was that our and their show contains some of the exact same segments, but with different names.

Discovering cultural similarities

In Syria, our colleagues from the Syrian Show "Jilouna", aimed at a general, broader audience, took us to  the market "Hamidiah" where we spoke to tourists and met with journalist Hakam Al Zaman who runs a live radio show.

For me, the exchange visit to Jordan and Syria was a beautiful experience. I benefitted in a professional capacity and discovered that both Jordanian and Syrian cultures are a bit similar to the Lebanese culture. Our final 16/24 episode of the season will be exclusively about our experiences in Jordan and Syria.

Background: IMS Partnership for Co-production and Exchange between Public Broadcasters

The aim of the IMS exchange programme is to generate and maintain relationships between public broadcasters in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan to promote crossborder content-sharing and intercultural knowledge.

One of the programme's flagship activities has been the training of journalists in the production of youth TV in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, content sharing and initiating the process of syncronizing youth TV programme formats in all three countries. In Jordan and Lebanon, the involved TV stations are presently broadcasting a weekly youth TV show.