85 million Arabs watched the Turkish soap opera Noor

Whether we liked it or not, the stars of Turkish soap operas Noor and Sanawat Al Daya’a have strongly forced themselves in the Arabic entertainment scene, the attention they got from people and media is really huge, I guess there is no single magazine, newspaper or online portal that didn’t include a piece about them, whether it was a special report or news.

The buzz around these two shows, specially Noor, was really big; a Fatwa in Saudi Arabia were issued against it, some men actually divorced their wives because of it, some people in Saudi have destroyed their satellite receivers because of it, no to mention the news about the increasing number of people naming their newly born children after Noor or Muhanad or Lamies… and so on.

According to a report by IPSOS, MBC 4’s Noor has scored what is believed to be the highest ratings ever for a serial drama in the recent history of Arab TV with nearly 85 million viewers across the Arab world tuned in for the final episode that was aired on 30 August. The other Turkish soap opera Sanawat Al Daya’a attracted 67 million viewers.

The funny thing is that in both cases 50% of viewers were women aged 15 years and above, which means that Arab men are as romantic as Arab women, or should I say as superficial as!

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