The Saudi-owned Pan-Arab television channel MBC will start airing the show El Bernameg hosted by Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef this month.
From February 7, Youssef will start the new season of his show on MBC-Masr, MBC announced in a statement on Wednesday.
The show has already gained considerable attention inside and outside Egypt in the past two years. The host’s name topped the most searched celebrities in Egypt last year, and the show topped the list of the most searched TV shows in Egypt, according to Google.
Youssef, a cardiac surgeon by trade, was summoned last March to the state prosecution office on charges of insulting Islam and the then President Mohamed Morsi. However, the programme was not suspended.
El Bernameg (The Programme in Egyptian Arabic) was suspended late last year following the first episode of the new season after Yousuf criticised the military, which orchestrated a coup to remove the Muslim Brotherhood president Mursi from power in July.
Saudi Arabia and most Arab Gulf regions welcomed the new regime in Egypt after some Arab Gulf countries uncovered Brotherhood cells accused of plotting against these countries.
Qatar was the only Arab country to side with the Brotherhood-led government. In one of his previous shows, a song was performed to the tune of an old Arab nationalist song mocking Qatar’s support for the Brotherhood.
Youssef came to be known as Egypt’s Jon Stewart in reference to the American political satirist and host of The Daily Show.
In an interview with Gulf News last year, Yousuf stressed that his show “was not stopped totally, and God willing we will be back.”
“We will exert everything we can to come back and be better than what we were,” he added.
