Stephen Arnold Music Creates Sonic Branding & Custom Music for Al Arabiya’s Global Rebrand
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) has created new sonic branding and custom music for Al Arabiya, the 24-hour television news channel based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The network is accessible worldwide through cable, satellite, IPTV providers, live website streaming, and mobile app platforms. SAM worked under the direction of Al Arabiya’s Ali Berry, Director of Branding and Creative Services, and Nayla Tawil, Art Director of Branding and Creative Services.
“The new sonic identity plays an important role in strengthening Al Arabiya’s brand experience across all platforms,” says Berry. “Working with Stephen Arnold Music, we developed a sound that reflects the network’s credibility, energy, and global outlook while remaining connected to the cultural roots of the region.”
SAM developed a sonic identity aligned with the network’s new emphasis on a human-focused and dynamic storytelling approach toward news. It conveys reliability, clarity, depth, and approachability by blending a modern, contemporary sound with instrumentation and musical elements rooted in the region. The result is a distinctive audio signature designed to connect the network with its global audience on an emotional level while reflecting its identity and heritage.
"The sonic brand serves as Al Arabiya’s sonic DNA," says Stephen Arnold Music President and Creative Director Chad Cook. "It’s incorporated into everything — from promotions and idents to programming themes — creating a sonic commonality and cohesiveness across the entire network."
Al Arabiya English's programming spans a wide range of content, including news and analysis, interviews and talk, social and political affairs, lifestyle and entertainment, and sports. SAM created individual themes for each programming area, with every theme rooted in the network's core sonic identity while being shaped by the personality, subject matter, format and style of each show.
"Each theme is inspired by and derived from the core sonic brand, but also distinct," Cook explains. "The themes for a sports program and an evening news show are unique to each, but also consistent with the overall network sound. Sometimes we use fewer notes in the melody, or reimagine the melody, or use different instrumentation — to keep each one fresh and distinct."
"The musical production is a blend of modern percussion, orchestration and sound stylizations, combined with a strategic use of analog synthesizers and regional instruments," adds Cook. "The analog synth lends color and energy — a unique, memorable, emotionally engaging sound."
For network identity and promotions, SAM delivered a range of network idents and teasers. To give Al Arabiya maximum flexibility in day-to-day promotions and marketing, SAM developed a customizable musical template for use in a wide variety of short-form idents. The template incorporates more than two dozen layers of different pitches, registers and instrumentation variations that can be used together or separately.
"Some are airy and atmospheric, others are dark and tense," Cook says. "Each ends with the melody of the core sonic brand, and all are synched so they can be mixed and matched. It could be just a piano, or just an oud, or both. It is a flexible audio toolkit that can be imported into a video session and creatively support whatever they need."
Al Arabiya English’s rebrand debuted in February.
