Al Arabiya sound blends regional instruments and analog synths

The new look at Al Arabiya’s headquarters in Riyadh arrived with a new sound to match.

As part of the 24-hour Arabic-language news network’s February 2026 rebrand, Dallas-based Stephen Arnold Music built out a complete sonic identity for the channel, including network idents, programming themes, promo beds and a customizable audio toolkit intended to keep day-to-day promotions consistent without locking producers into a single piece of music.

Al Arabiya’s new Riyadh facility puts the newsroom in the frame

Stephen Arnold Music worked under the direction of Ali Berry, director of branding and creative services at Al Arabiya, and Nayla Tawil, art director of branding and creative services. Al Arabiya is distributed worldwide through cable, satellite, IPTV, web streaming and mobile platforms, and the rebrand was designed to carry across all of them.

“The new sonic identity plays an important role in strengthening Al Arabiya’s brand experience across all platforms,” said 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.”

A core melody, then variations

The team’s approach started with a single core piece, a melody and palette intended to function as the network’s audio signature, and then radiated outward into themes for each programming area.

“The sonic brand serves as Al Arabiya’s sonic DNA,” said Chad Cook, president and creative director at Stephen Arnold Music. “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 lineup spans news and analysis, interviews and talk, social and political affairs, lifestyle and entertainment and sports. Stephen Arnold Music wrote individual themes for each, drawing from the network’s core melody but reshaping it for the personality and pace of each show.

“Each theme is inspired by and derived from the core sonic brand, but also distinct,” said Cook. “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.”

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Instrumentation to match the regional voices

The production layers modern percussion, orchestration and sound design with regional instrumentation and analog synthesizers, an attempt to keep the sound contemporary while signaling where the network is based.

“The musical production is a blend of modern percussion, orchestration and sound stylizations, combined with a strategic use of analog synthesizers and regional instruments,” said Cook. “The analog synth lends color and energy — a unique, memorable, emotionally engaging sound.”

A toolkit built for daily promos

Beyond the network idents and program themes, Stephen Arnold Music delivered a customizable musical template aimed at short-form work — the kind of brief idents and teasers that get cut and recut throughout the day. The template contains more than two dozen synced layers of different pitches, registers and instruments that can be combined or used individually.

“Some are airy and atmospheric, others are dark and tense,” said Cook. “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.”

The Al Arabiya rebrand debuted in February 2026, alongside the on-air launch of the network’s new Riyadh studios.