This NYT article describes who the major satellite TV and newspaper players are serving the Arab world.

An excerpt:

SATELLITE TELEVISION

Al Jazeera Financed in large part by the Qatar government, the controversial channel has been banned from operating in numerous Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, of which it has been highly critical.

Politics is the lifeblood of this station. There is a lot of interactive programming with viewers phoning in, though the shows tend to be sensational and tend to encourage heated arguments more than thoughtful debate. Here, Western soldiers are called "occupiers" and suicide bombers "martyrs."

Al Jazeera's journalists have always fashioned themselves as defenders of Arab identity, but increasingly, the network also casts itself as a champion of Islamic values. It is planning to launch an English-language channel this year, ostensibly to reach Western audiences but more importantly to reach English-speaking Muslims in Asia and in the West.

Al Arabiya The independent channel is the second-largest news satellite station in the Arab world, owned by the Middle East Broadcasting Center, one of the largest Arab media companies. The center is itself owned in large part by Prince Walid bin Talal, a Saudi billionaire.

Unsurprisingly, Al Arabiya is supportive of the Saudi government and is intended to be a less shrill competitor to Al Jazeera. Begun just weeks before the invasion of Iraq, it has higher production values and more tolerance toward the United States, referring to American troops in Iraq as part of "multinational forces."

The NYT links will be dead (actually, you'll have to pay to retrieve-and-read), but here's some earlier blog postings on al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya.

Qatar looking to unload al-Jazeera (Jan. 31)

The war inside the Arab newsroom (Jan. 5)