From Diplomat to Omani Media Dynasty: Times of Oman, Essa Al Zedjali, and the 50-Year Power, Business, and Influence Network of Muscat Media Group

The core conclusion is that Times of Oman should not be understood merely as an English-language newspaper. It is better understood as one of the Al-Zedjali family’s most important public-influence assets and the central project through which Essa bin Mohammed Al Zedjali combined diplomacy, national branding, business ownership, and media influence.

Times of Oman published its first issue on 23 February 1975. One frequently repeated description requires clarification. Although corporate and outside profiles often call it Oman’s “first English daily,” Times of Oman’s own history states that it began in 1975 as a tabloid news weekly and became a broadsheet daily only in 1990. The most precise formulation, therefore, is that it was Oman’s pioneering and longest-running English-language newspaper and subsequently became an English daily.

Its corporate parent evolved from Muscat Press and Publishing / Muscat Press and Publishing House into Muscat Media Group, or MMG. By 2025–2026, MMG was no longer simply a newspaper publisher. Its operations covered English and Arabic publishing, digital media, radio, social media, video, advertising technology, and commercial events. Campaign Middle East reported in 2025 that the company operated more than 32 media platforms.

The deeper historical path is:

oil-industry and administrative experience → Gulf governmental work → Omani diplomacy → English media as a national communications instrument → printing and publishing → Arabic media → digital media → radio and video → events, awards, marketing and integrated commercial media services.

This is why Times of Oman developed differently from a typical Western newspaper start-up. From the beginning it carried three functions simultaneously: news product, commercial enterprise, and national image platform. That continuity is still visible in MMG management’s frequent references to communicating Oman’s message and supporting Oman Vision 2040.

Essa bin Mohammed Al Zedjali was born in Muscat in 1939 and did not emerge from a publicly documented modern media dynasty.

Essaco Group’s official biography says that Essa bin Mohammed Al Zedjali was born in Muscat in 1939. Flamma International, the later family-group brand, describes his origins as “humble beginnings” and portrays him as an avid reader who later became a columnist, businessman and media pioneer. Since these descriptions come primarily from family corporate sources, they should not be extended into unsupported claims about his parents’ exact occupations or wealth.

The names and occupations of his parents, as well as the early family wealth structure, are publicly limited / accounts differ / cannot currently be confirmed.

What can be established is that unlike the second generation, which entered an established family group, Essa built his career by moving through Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Oman at a time when domestic educational and corporate infrastructure in Oman was still relatively limited. That international movement became a major source of capital in the broad sense: languages, perspective, governmental contacts, commercial networks, and acute awareness of how foreigners perceived Oman.

His educational record was not a conventional elite-university trajectory, but it helps explain why he became a highly practical diplomat, businessman and publisher.

Essaco states that he attended Al Saidiyah School in Muscat, completing his primary education in 1953, and later continued his studies in Karachi and Saudi Arabia. Public sources do not provide a reliably verifiable university, field of study, graduation date, or degree.

His higher-education credentials are therefore publicly limited / accounts differ / cannot currently be confirmed.

His intellectual capital appears to have been accumulated substantially through employment, reading, travel and public service. Flamma describes him as a voracious reader, while former Times/MMG employees later remembered his emphasis on accuracy, small details, professional access and his own “Viewpoint” column. These are internal commemorative testimonies rather than independent assessments, but they help illuminate his management and editorial style.

His most important early school was effectively the emerging Gulf oil–government–diplomatic system.

According to Essaco, Essa worked at Saudi Aramco from 1954 to 1956, then joined Petroleum Development Oman from 1956 to 1958, working in administration at Fahud.

Those experiences were significant. In the Gulf of the 1950s and 1960s, major oil companies were among the few institutions offering exposure to modern administration, multinational workforces, English-language operations and large-scale organizational systems.

Essaco subsequently says he headed a Manuscripts Department in Kuwait and served as secretary in Abu Dhabi’s Government Oil Department from 1969 to 1972. However, the same corporate biography lists his Kuwait tenure as 1959–1986, which clearly overlaps with his later Abu Dhabi and Omani diplomatic positions. The exact chronology is therefore publicly limited / accounts differ / cannot currently be confirmed.

The decisive career transition was into diplomacy.

In February 1972, Essa joined Oman’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Director of Consular Affairs. His official biography also says that he became Oman’s first Consul-General in Bombay, serving from 1974 to 1979.

This is crucial to understanding him: the founder of Times of Oman was not originally a career newspaperman. He was already a veteran of oil companies, government administration and diplomacy.

His concept of media therefore treated journalism as more than news production. It was also infrastructure for national recognition, trade, diplomacy, investment and international image-building.

In 2019, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi posthumously awarded Essa a Certificate of Appreciation for lifelong services to Pakistan–Oman friendship and social welfare. Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summarized his career as that of an administrator, diplomat, businessman and journalist, citing his assistance to Pakistani residents, humanitarian work during natural disasters and contributions to bilateral ties. His son Mohamed Issa Al Zadjali received the award for the family.

Those four identities—administrator, diplomat, businessman and journalist—describe him more accurately than “media founder” alone.

The founding idea for Times of Oman emerged from a perceived deficit in international awareness of Oman.

According to the family account later told by Mohamed Issa Al Zadjali in anniversary articles, around 1974 Essa received a telex while working at the Foreign Ministry from Flying Tiger Corporation concerning overflight permission. The sender effectively treated Muscat/Oman as though it were geographically part of Saudi Arabia.

For Essa, the episode symbolized a broader problem: Oman, then in the early years of rapid modernization under Sultan Qaboos, remained poorly understood internationally as a sovereign state with its own identity.

His underlying logic was therefore not simply:

“Oman lacks a newspaper; let us launch one for profit.”

It was closer to:

“The outside world does not understand Oman; Oman needs an English-language communications window.”

Ahmed later told Tharawat Magazine that his father envisioned the newspaper as a “roving ambassador for the country.” He said the founder saw the English newspaper as his own way of responding to Sultan Qaboos’s call for citizens to participate in national development.

This became the most durable conceptual thread in Times of Oman’s history: media as a mechanism for connecting Oman with the outside world.

The 1975 start-up combined a printing company with an English newspaper.

In 1975, Essa founded Al Essa Printing and Publishing House, later known as Muscat Press and Publishing House, and launched Times of Oman. The first issue appeared on 23 February 1975.

Times’ own history says its initial audience included expatriates in Oman, while a second objective was explicitly to promote Oman abroad. Because a large share of the English-reading population came from the Indian subcontinent, the newspaper also devoted substantial space to Indian, Pakistani and South Asian news.

That audience design shaped the economics of the publication.

From the beginning, Times functioned as a bridge:

Omani governmental and business information → English → expatriate workforce / international business community / foreign audiences.

At the same time:

South Asian news → expatriates living in Oman.

Its strategic value therefore did not depend on a large domestic native-English-speaking population. It depended on Oman’s internationalized labor market, commercial environment and diplomatic position.

One of the founder’s most consequential decisions was to continue treating distribution as diplomacy even when the newspaper faced financial strain.

MMG’s own 50th- and 51st-anniversary histories acknowledge significant financial pressure during the early decades. They say Essa nevertheless paid for international news services, sent copies to overseas universities and libraries, and even subsidized street sales in London so that Oman would receive greater exposure abroad.

The exact losses, circulation volumes and spending are not independently disclosed.

But the strategic logic is clear:

The return on Times of Oman was not only newspaper profit. It also included national exposure, status, diplomatic relationships, commercial networks and reputational capital.

That distinction is essential to understanding why the family could justify media investment over a very long horizon.

It also established a characteristic that remains important today:

the value of the media asset is not identical to its direct cash-flow value.

The publication also produces reputational capital, institutional access, event-organizing capability and agenda-setting influence.

The years from 1990 to 1998 transformed Times from a single English publication into the foundation of a wider media system.

In 1990, Times of Oman became a broadsheet daily.

In 1993, the group launched Al Shabiba, expanding beyond the expatriate and English-speaking audience into the broader Arabic-speaking Omani public.

The two products occupied complementary positions.

Times was particularly valuable for:

international business, expatriates, diplomacy, English-language readers and Oman’s external image.

Al Shabiba gave the family a gateway into:

domestic Arabic public discourse and the Arabic advertising market.

In 1998, Times of Oman established an online edition. The company describes it as a regional first; the absolute ranking should be treated as a corporate claim, but the 1998 launch date itself is consistently documented. E-paper, mobile and social products followed.

The second-generation succession revolves around two figures rather than one: Mohamed and Ahmed, effectively combining chairman/editorial influence with CEO-led digital commercialization.

After Essa’s death, control did not simply pass to outside professional managers.

As of a June 2025 MMG report:

Mohamed Issa Al Zadjali was Chairman of Muscat Media Group and Editor-in-Chief of Times of Oman;

Ahmed Essa Al Zedjali was Chief Executive Officer of Muscat Media Group and Editor-in-Chief of Al Shabiba.

Campaign Middle East independently described the group in late 2025 as being led by Chairman Mohamed Issa Al Zadjali and CEO Ahmed Issa Al Zadjali.

Through August 2026, Mohamed continued publishing commentary under his MMG chairman title on economics, regulation, society, international affairs and other topics. This indicates that his role remains publicly substantive rather than purely ceremonial.

Ahmed’s role is different. He is the second-generation executive most strongly associated with digitization, product transformation, commercialization and group expansion.

In a 2017 interview, Ahmed said he had joined the family business in 2000. His task was not simply to operate another traditional newspaper but to convert an established print brand into a multi-platform media business.

The second-generation structure can therefore be summarized as:

Mohamed: family chairman, Times editorial leadership, public commentary and relationship capital.

Ahmed: CEO, Al Shabiba editorial leadership, digital transformation, commercialization and group operations.

The Al-Zedjali family’s commercial asset base is substantially broader than Times of Oman.

The enterprise founded by Essa in 1975 developed into Essaco Group. Its official website lists businesses including:

Al Essa Trading & Contracting, Muscat Media Group, Oriental Pharmacy, Oriental Clinic, Al Khair Al Omaniya, Al Essa Dental Clinic, Al Essa Optician and Oriental Printing Press.

The family later presented parts of the broader group under the Flamma International umbrella. Its corporate history says it brought together 15 enterprises spanning traditional and digital media, creative communications, e-commerce, trading and contracting, healthcare and related businesses.

The Omani Flamma International should not be automatically confused with an unrelated online corporate identity carrying the Flamma name in the international pharmaceutical/CDMO sector.

Essa, in other words, was not simply the owner of a newspaper.

He built a diversified family enterprise in which media became one of the most visible and influential business lines.

The assets can usefully be divided into:

hard/commercial assets—printing, publishing, trading, contracting, healthcare, pharmacies, clinics and optical businesses;

and influence assets—Times of Oman, Al Shabiba, radio, digital channels, editorial brands, governmental and business relationships, conferences, awards and international media partnerships.

The second category may not necessarily carry the highest accounting valuation, but it is among the family’s hardest resources to replicate.

Muscat Media Group has evolved from a newspaper publisher into a bilingual, cross-platform advertising and media network.

Media assets confirmed by a 2025 independent trade report include:

Times of Oman—English-language flagship;

Al Shabiba—Arabic-language flagship;

Hounna;

TFM—English radio;

Shabiba FM—Arabic radio;

and Eshhar, an electronic-flyer/digital distribution service.

Times’ historical corporate pages also record products such as Faces, Hi, Thursday magazine, Heavenly Homes and Art of Cooking. Some of these are historical products and should not automatically be assumed to remain equally active in 2026.

The launch of TFM in 2018 was particularly significant because it moved MMG beyond publishing and firmly into audio broadcasting. The group’s 51st-anniversary retrospective still identifies the 2018 radio launch as a major milestone.

Combined with Times TV, websites, YouTube, Facebook, X, Instagram and other social assets, MMG increasingly resembles:

a newsroom + advertising network + social-content company + radio group + events business + brand-marketing platform.

The evolution of the business model is central to understanding Ahmed’s importance.

The first stage, from 1975 through the early print era, relied on:

newspaper sales + printing + advertising + long-term family support.

Corporate histories acknowledge financial stress and portray the founder as prioritizing the publication’s mission over short-term profitability.

The second stage added:

English daily publishing + Arabic publishing + supplements + classifieds + printing capacity.

Times’ own historical description shows how classified advertising and lifestyle/business supplements expanded the range of advertising inventory.

The third stage brought:

web + e-paper + mobile + social media + video.

A major organizational break occurred in 2014, when, according to Ahmed, Times eliminated print-only roles and adopted the principle that “online is everyone’s responsibility.” Employees were offered retraining, while some chose to leave.

This represented an organizational redesign, not merely the addition of a website.

Journalists were increasingly producing for real-time web, social, mobile and video as well as print.

Ahmed later said that online reads rose from about 8 million in 2013 to more than 56 million in 2016, Facebook followers from around 15,000 to 560,000, and video views from roughly 50,000 to 26 million. These are management-supplied figures rather than independently audited audience metrics.

More significantly, Ahmed said MMG withdrew from mass ad networks such as Google Ads, positioned its audience as a premium local product and sold directly to advertisers, resulting in a claimed 10,000% increase in digital revenue between 2013 and 2016. He cited Oman Air, Mercedes, Emirates and Red Bull among advertisers. Again, the percentage is a management claim without publicly disclosed audited financial statements.

The strategic logic, however, is important:

MMG sought to monetize trusted local audience relationships directly rather than commoditize all traffic through automated ad networks.

This marked a transition from newspaper economics toward audience economics.

During the 2020s, the business model expanded further into what MMG calls “360-degree media.”

Ahmed’s 50th-anniversary article describes the group as covering visual, audio, print and social media, with a claimed daily reach of about 3.7 million followers. That reach figure is corporate-reported and should not be treated as an independently audited unique-user count.

Revenue opportunities increasingly extend beyond newspaper advertising.

MMG has entered a season-long media partnership with the Oman Football Association, using print, digital, video and FM capabilities.

It has discussed news, tourism and investment-promotion cooperation with China Media Group.

It has developed or supported platforms such as the Gulf Business Summit, Business Leadership Summit, TOMI Awards and Shabiba Jawa’iz Basma, converting media reach into event organization, sponsorship inventory, awards franchises and commercial networking.

A 2025 partnership with Elysium for a women’s leadership program also involved certification through an MMG Academy, suggesting a further move into professional-development and branded-community offerings.

One of the most consequential recent commercial developments occurred on 1 November 2025, when MMG appointed Arabian Media Company, part of Choueiri Group, as its exclusive media representative. AMC became responsible for integrated advertising sales across Times of Oman, Al Shabiba, Hounna, TFM, Shabiba FM, Eshhar and related digital/social assets.

This effectively connects a locally controlled Omani family-media inventory to a more developed regional advertising-sales network.

The business model can now be summarized as:

content → attention → audience → advertising → integrated marketing → events → awards → commercial relationships → brand services.

MMG’s capital structure differs sharply from that of a venture-backed technology company: there is little sign of the classic VC–PE–funding-round story; the visible core is family control, operating revenues and long-term relationship capital.

Times identifies the publisher as Muscat Media Group SAOC.

However, detailed shareholding percentages, family ownership stakes, possible minority investors, consolidated revenue, profits, debt, valuation and the precise legal ownership relationships among the various Essaco/Flamma entities are publicly limited / accounts differ / cannot currently be confirmed.

The visible resource structure is instead:

family ownership and long-term control + printing and diversified operating businesses + advertisers + institutional relationships + international partners + second-generation management.

Ahmed explicitly said that being a family business helped the digital transformation because the owners shared the mission inherited from their father and could commit collectively to long-term change.

That structure offers advantages:

long decision horizons, relatively concentrated authority and the ability to tolerate short-term volatility.

It also creates a governance question:

when family ownership, executive management and senior editorial authority overlap, outsiders have limited visibility into the precise firewall between commercial and editorial decision-making.

Essa’s resource network extended through government, commerce, diplomacy and international newspaper organizations.

According to Essaco, he served:

two terms on Oman’s Consultative Council from 1985 to 1989;

eight years with the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry;

six years on a Commercial Disputes Committee;

as Honorary Consul-General of the Philippines in Oman from 1989 to 1994;

and as a participant in the World Association of Newspapers and Gulf newspaper organizations.

This was not the profile of a single-industry entrepreneur.

Structurally he was closer to:

an intermediary elite linking public administration and private capital + international connector + media owner.

That is why Times of Oman’s influence cannot be measured solely through circulation figures.

A publisher who simultaneously possessed diplomatic, chamber-of-commerce, consultative-council and business credentials could create relationship capital far beyond the cash flow of a newspaper.

The key turning points can be condensed into a clear chronology.

1939: Essa is born in Muscat.

1953: completes primary education at Al Saidiyah School and later studies in Karachi and Saudi Arabia.

1954–1958: works at Saudi Aramco and PDO, entering modern Gulf corporate administration.

1960s–early 1970s: builds governmental experience in Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, though parts of the published chronology conflict.

1972: joins Oman’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Director of Consular Affairs.

1974: becomes Oman’s first Consul-General in Bombay; around the same period, the telex episode helps inspire the concept of an English publication promoting Oman internationally.

1975: establishes Al Essa Printing and Publishing House and Times of Oman; first issue appears on February 23.

1990: Times becomes a broadsheet daily.

1993: Al Shabiba launches, bringing the group into mass Arabic-language media.

1998: Times launches online.

2000: Ahmed joins the family business.

2004–2010s: e-paper, mobile and social products expand.

2014: Times eliminates print-only roles and makes digital production a newsroom-wide responsibility.

2018: TFM launches, taking MMG beyond publishing into radio.

2020s: events, awards, video, radio, social and integrated commercial partnerships accelerate; MMG embraces the “360-degree media” label.

2025: Arabian Media Company of Choueiri Group becomes MMG’s exclusive media representative, integrating MMG more deeply into the regional advertising-sales ecosystem.

2026: Times celebrates its 51st anniversary, while Mohamed remains publicly active as MMG chairman, demonstrating continued second-generation family control.

Essa’s greatest achievement was not merely keeping one newspaper alive for decades. It was creating unusual continuity across language, generation and medium within Oman’s private media sector.

Times of Oman has operated from 1975 through 2026, celebrating 51 years in February 2026.

Essa also recognized unusually early that English could have strategic value in a Gulf country where it was not the main native language because it functioned as a common language for expatriate labor, diplomacy, energy, aviation, tourism, finance and international business.

The group then moved beyond that English-language niche through Al Shabiba, while the second generation extended the franchise into radio, websites, social networks, video and commercial events.

Media influence, in turn, reinforced the family’s broader reputation and relationship network.

His real achievement was therefore not one product but a media brand architecture capable of migrating repeatedly as technology changed.

His personal reputation also depended heavily on diplomatic and social capital rather than business wealth alone.

Pakistan’s 2019 official recognition emphasized his assistance to Pakistani nationals, disaster-relief activity and role in Pakistan–Oman friendship, demonstrating influence beyond conventional newspaper ownership.

Former Times/MMG employees repeatedly described him using ideas such as:

accuracy, detail, decisiveness, mentorship and access.

They recalled his insistence on news accuracy and professional standards and his practice of introducing journalists to senior figures so they could build stronger information networks. One former employee also recounted a 2005 China trip during which Essa personally helped address halal-food and equipment problems.

These are affectionate internal memories rather than neutral external evaluations, but they indicate that he was not merely a passive financial owner.

He wrote columns, served as editor-in-chief and participated in newspaper organizations.

He was closer to an:

owner-editor / publisher-statesman.

Any critical assessment must distinguish corporate promotional claims from independent analysis.

Times and MMG anniversary materials frequently use descriptions such as “leading,” “most trusted,” “only 360-degree media group,” “3.7 million followers daily,” and “global powerhouse.”

These are best treated as corporate positioning and marketing claims, not automatically as independently audited market-share findings.

For example, Mohamed wrote in 2023 that MMG’s 360-degree platforms reached more than 65% of Oman’s population and that the Times website received more than 20 million monthly views. Such numbers are valuable indicators of management’s internal view of scale, but publicly available sources do not provide a complete independent measurement methodology alongside them.

A safer conclusion is therefore:

MMG is clearly one of Oman’s oldest and most diversified privately controlled media groups, but its exact market share, audited revenue and deduplicated audience size cannot be established from public financial disclosure.

The deeper controversy is what kind of “private media” Times of Oman actually represents.

In ownership terms, MMG is privately/family controlled rather than an official Omani government newspaper. Academic work on Arab media systems likewise discusses Times of Oman and Al Shabiba within Oman’s private-media sector.

But private ownership does not automatically mean an independent adversarial press in the Western sense.

Freedom House’s 2024 Oman report describes a media environment constrained by legal limits, in which private outlets practice self-censorship and can face consequences for crossing political red lines. Its 2026 assessment continues to rate Oman Not Free, 24/100, citing significant restrictions on political rights and civil liberties.

This is not an allegation that Times of Oman itself committed a specific offense. It describes the institutional environment in which the publication operates.

Two realities therefore need to be held together:

Times is indeed a long-running privately controlled family media organization;

but it also openly frames its mission around promoting Oman, advancing national development, supporting Oman Vision 2040 and contributing to national initiatives.

Its structural role is consequently closer to:

an establishment-aligned national-development and national-branding media organization

than to:

an adversarial watchdog whose primary identity is sustained investigation of state power.

That distinction is essential to understanding its real-world position.

Oman’s new media-law environment from 2024 onward makes this structural issue even more important.

On 10 November 2024, Oman issued a new Media Law through Royal Decree 58/2024. The law formally recognizes freedom of opinion and expression through media outlets while creating a unified framework for print, audio, visual and electronic media.

DLA Piper offered a comparatively positive legal interpretation, noting explicit protections for media expression and a principle against prior censorship, subject to compliance with legal standards.

Rights organizations have taken a much more critical view.

IFEX and the Gulf Centre for Human Rights argue that broad provisions in the law and its 2025 executive regulations give the Ministry of Information extensive licensing, suspension and content-control powers and may reinforce self-censorship. GCHR renewed those criticisms after implementing regulations were issued in September 2025.

The appropriate conclusion is therefore neither “Times is pro-government, so it cannot be trusted” nor “Times is private, so it must be fully independent.”

A more precise description is:

Times of Oman is a privately controlled family media institution operating inside a highly regulated Omani media environment with clearly defined political and cultural boundaries.

There is little reason to portray the Al-Zedjali media empire as the product of external financial capital. Its more important capital is relational.

The most visible long-term partners are not venture funds or private-equity firms but:

Omani governmental and public institutions;

the Oman Football Association;

local and international advertisers;

China Media Group and other international media networks;

Pakistani diplomatic and expatriate networks;

Choueiri Group / Arabian Media Company;

and the Oman–GCC business community reached through conferences, summits and awards.

For a family media group of this type, “capital” therefore includes much more than money:

regulatory access, brand credibility, advertiser relationships, government relationships, diplomatic networks, business networks, reader trust, editorial heritage and intergenerational control.

Together, those assets can form a stronger competitive barrier than a single financing round.

By 2026, Times of Oman is clearly in a mature second-generation operating phase.

In February 2026, Times publicly marked its 51st anniversary and continued operating across its digital channels.

Mohamed Issa Al Zadjali remains MMG chairman and continues to write publicly on private-sector economics, talent policy, international relations and social issues.

Ahmed Essa Al Zedjali continues to represent the group in industry and international-media relationships. In 2025, for example, he represented MMG at the Belt and Road Media Cooperation Forum.

The family power structure can therefore be read as:

First generation, Essa: founding narrative, diplomatic network, media mission and source of brand legitimacy.

Second generation, Mohamed: chairman, English flagship editorial authority, public commentary and social relationships.

Second generation, Ahmed: CEO, Arabic flagship leadership, digital transformation and commercial expansion.

This is not a story in which a founder died and external professional management replaced the family. It is a case of institutionalized generational succession in a family-controlled media group.

1. From an asset perspective, the paper edition itself may no longer be Times of Oman’s most valuable component.

The deeper moat consists of five decades of accumulated:

Times of Oman brand equity;

Al Shabiba’s Arabic-language gateway;

digital distribution and social accounts;

radio and audio brands;

advertiser relationships;

government, chamber, sports, diplomatic and corporate networks;

conference and awards capabilities;

and the public identity of the Al-Zedjali family itself as owner-editors.

That is the distinction between influence assets and ordinary financial assets.

A new digital outlet can acquire traffic quickly. It is far harder to reproduce, in a short period, a network dating to 1975 that operates simultaneously across diplomacy, national development, advertising, expatriate English audiences and Arabic public life.

Its greatest strength is also the source of its central structural tension.

The strength is obvious:

Essa recognized early that a relatively small Gulf country could increase international visibility through English-language media;

the family did not cling to print when the internet emerged, launching a website in 1998;

Ahmed’s second generation transformed the newsroom from print-first to multi-platform;

and MMG ultimately expanded into Arabic media, radio, video, social, events and integrated advertising solutions.

The tension is equally important:

the more deeply the group becomes integrated into Oman’s national-branding, Vision 2040, business-promotion and institutional ecosystem, the less accurately it can be described solely through the Western “Fourth Estate” model of adversarial watchdog journalism.

Its strongest function is:

connecting the state, business, expatriates and the outside world.

Its brand was not built primarily around an anti-establishment identity.

Ultimately, what Essa bin Mohammed Al Zedjali left behind was not simply a newspaper but an inheritable media–business–relationship network.

His life path was not:

journalist → editor → newspaper founder.

It was:

Muscat youth → Saudi Aramco / PDO → Gulf government administration → Omani diplomacy → Consul-General → printing and publishing entrepreneur → newspaper founder/editor → diversified businessman → Consultative Council / chamber / diplomatic-network figure.

That trajectory explains why he could build Times of Oman.

His distinctive competence was not simply writing journalism. It was understanding, at the same time:

how government works;

how foreigners perceive Oman;

what international business needs to know;

what expatriate audiences need to read;

what advertisers value in an audience;

and how media can become a durable source of social position.

The second generation did not overturn that model. It technologically upgraded it.

The founder’s idea that “the newspaper should serve as a roving ambassador for Oman” evolved into the second generation’s principle of reaching audiences wherever they happen to be.

Ahmed has explicitly said that technologies and delivery strategies continually change while the underlying mission of reaching as many people as possible with Oman’s message remains substantially the same.

The deepest continuity at Times of Oman / MMG is therefore not paper. It is distribution.

In 1975, distribution meant printing presses, postal delivery, overseas libraries and subsidized copies in London.

In 1998, it meant the web.

In the 2010s, it meant Facebook, mobile and video.

After 2018, it included FM radio and Times TV.

In the 2020s, it increasingly means events, awards, commercial partnerships, social platforms and regional advertising representation.

That leads to the clearest way to understand the Al-Zedjali family’s five-decade media story:

What they have really been operating is not merely “news content,” but an infrastructure for connecting Oman with multiple audiences.

Essa bin Mohammed Al Zedjali was the first-generation architect of that system.

Mohamed and Ahmed Al Zedjali are the second generation that transformed his national-communications newspaper model into a family-controlled, multi-platform media institution capable of surviving the digital era.