A fter a long day at work and what seems like an even a longer commute home, you look forward to lazing on your couch for your sacred hour of TV watching.

You flip from one channel to another, but nothing seems to catch your attention.
You think of watching an episode or two or your favorite show, again, but you realize you now know them all by heart.
After a sigh of frustration you wonder why there isn’t a single channel that offers something different, creative, objective and actually relevant, maybe. Sound familiar?

Enter elgomhoreya.tv, the country’s first, and only, online channel.
Created by Core Virtual, sister company of Core Publications, the publisher of Campus, Gmag and E7na magazines, the channel has a little something for everyone, from political talk shows to sociopolitical documentaries to music videos and even programs for the little ones.

The New Face of TV
“It’s not just a website. It’s an online portal that we created when we realized that there was really no honest and unbiased media here in Egypt, especially for youth,” says Nadine Khedr, project manager at Core Virtual.

“We wanted to have a new and revolutionized form of media at a high quality and with unique content that informs, entertains and educates.”

Only a few months old, elgomhoreya.tv aims to reach the masses, not just a particular target audience. “We wanted to [target] people of all different ages, backgrounds and religions.

It also goes beyond borders because we wanted to include both Egyptians and foreigners alike,” explains Khedr.
But being an online channel isn’t the only thing that sets it apart from our long list of conventional TV channels. elgomhoreya.tv’s team of producers and presenters is comprised solely of highly ambitious young professionals in their 20s and 30s.

“We felt like there were a lot of really talented Egyptian and Arab youth out there with great ideas and potential, and that all they needed was a platform, so we wanted to provide that,” says Khedr.

Currently, elgomhoreya.tv’s content is 70 percent provided by the channel’s team and 30 percent provided by the channel’s viewers. The channel hopes to see that ratio shift in favor of viewer content.
“Our aim is to have users participate [either by uploading or sending content],” says Khedr. “We’re working on different competitions and our whole mission at this point is to get to the stage where users provide more content than us.”

The channel’s name, which translates to republic, is a result of several brainstorming sessions. “[F]or so long this country was a monarchy, not an actual republic,” says Khedr.

“The monarchy is gone now and for the first time, we really are a republic, and that’s what we wanted the name to symbolize.”

The Business of Online TV
While most business people were reluctant to venture into any new businesses following the events of the January 25 Revolution, the Core Virtual team jumped at the chance to bring elgomhoreya.tv to life.

“It was perfect timing actually since the revolution gave us a lot of inspiration and direction, and a lot of new talent has been emerging,” says Khedr.

But the idea has been in the works long before the revolution. “A lot of people think we launched because of the revolution, but the real story is that we first wanted to be an actual TV channel two years ago, but we found out that a license costs $300,000!” reveals Khedr. “However, we are proof that where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

The road to realizing the dream of a TV channel was far from rosy, and their biggest challenge was attempting to fill in the gaps in today’s mainstream media. Nonetheless, elgomhoreya.tv channel’s viewers and advertisers are raving.

“We’ve been receiving calls and emails from people all over the world telling us that this is a great move,” says Khedr. “Everyone agrees that online is the future, and the beauty of it is that you can change or update [content] immediately, according to feedback.”

This is exactly why Core Virtual has no immediate plans to alter anything about elgomhoreya.tv for the next six months, with Khedr explaining, “It’s too early to change anything […]. But for the time being we’re very satisfied.”

Because of the novelty of an online TV channel, the team was driven to seek out more than just one advertising method to promote their work.

Core Virtual is relying heavily on social media, especially in this early phase, in addition to the conventional methods of advertising, such as its billboard on the Sixth of October bridge. And Khedr says that this is only the beginning.

“We are still in the learning stages, so we didn’t want to swamp the websites with too much traffic until we’re ready,” she explains. “Once we are, we have big plans for promotion.”

With this amount of energy and enthusiasm, the future looks bright for elgomhoreya.tv and its team of creators, so keep your eyes and ears open for more from this new channel. et