Egyptian Satirist Bassem Youssef is Back On Air · Global Voices
Tarek Amr

In Egypt, it may take you airing your show on a YouTube channel and three TV channels to keep it going. In October last year, the CBC channel decided to take Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef's show, El Bernameg, off air. The statement issued by the channel back then stated that the content of the first episode of the show “violated what was agreed upon with CBC”. Blogger Zeinobia summarized the climate then after the first episode was aired:
The Islamists are angry from Bassem Youssef as usual. Already they used to hate him during Morsi so there is nothing new about it. The new thing is the reaction of the Pro-military rule/Pro-El Sisi supporters who used to cheer for Bassem . The Pro-Military supporters are extremely angry because the famous satirist dared and spoke about the general !! He did not even mock him directly.
Bassem Youssef and his show were trending on twitter.
On Friday [February 7, 2014], the show was back on MBC Masr, a channel owned by Saudi businessman Waleed Al Ibrahim.
And, as usual, people were wondering whether Youssef would dare mention Egyptian strongman and Defense Minister Field Marshall Abdel Fattah El Sisi, even before the episode was aired.
طبعا باسم يوسف كالعادة يا ولاد مش هيجيب سيرة السيسي هيرقص علي جثث الاخوان اكتر واكتر
— أحمد علي ما أظن (@A_AHaleem) February 1, 2014
@A_AHaleem: For sure Bassem Youssef will not mention El Sisi, and will dance on the dead bodies of the Ikhwan more and more.
Dr As'ad AbuKhalil, aka The Angry Arab, was also cynical about Youssef's choice of TV channel to air his famous programme:
After a feverish search for free network, Egyptian satirist, Bassem Youssef, has decided that Saudi MBC TV station is the freest of them all. How cute. I am sure that the new boss of Youssef would let him mock the Saudi King and Sisi.
However, Zeinobia, wrote summarized the episode right after it was aired:
The episode started with funny Sketch where Bassem hinted out to El Sisi/army mania in a funny way then it was the big show. Youssef and his team slammed CBC and its owner Mohamed El Amin. He also mocked other pathetic TV hosts who were attacking him exposing their overreactions. He claimed that he would
avoid the one who won't be named showing a silhouetted photo of El Sisi but man he mentioned names several times.
She added:
In the second segment Bassem continued speaking about the El Sisi-Mania in the Egyptian TV that extended to cooking shows and fashion shows.
The question now is for how long will the show continue on MBC Masr, before we hear the news of Bassem Youssef looking for a new channel for his show.