Dubai's iconic tv antenna is demolished

One of Dubai's more familiar structures, the Jumeirah TV antenna, has been demolished.

Transcript

00:00One of Dubai's iconic landmarks collapses into the dust.

00:20The Jumeirah TV antenna has guided many a lost driver over the years, famously lit up

00:25at night like a tree near Sheikh Zayed Road.

00:28It's become a familiar, even endearing, feature of Dubai's skyline.

00:33And moves towards newer technologies has ultimately made the huge 22-year-old cumbersome TV antenna

00:39outdated.

00:40So when a small group of residents turned up early on a foggy morning to witness its

00:44demise, it wasn't without a sense of sadness.

00:47We moved out here in 1981, and this has been a landmark for us since then, obviously.

00:57We used to camp here because it was just all desert, and today's a pretty sad day that

01:04it's going down.

01:06Demolition crews had replaced sections of the 255-metre-high steel structure with explosives.

01:12All in all, officials say just three and a half kilos were used to bring it down.

01:16Well, before you press a button, you hope that everything works like calculated, which

01:23did very well.

01:24We had no noise, we had no dust, so it worked perfectly today.

01:28A crew of 10 men orchestrated the morning's work.

01:32And it was also an emotional experience for some who were part of the team that built

01:36it over 20 years ago.

01:38I actually came in here in 86, 84, but stayed on till 86, and was part and parcel of the

01:44company that built this.

01:45Unfortunately, times move on, and it's a sad day.

01:49It's a sad day for many people, for this cultural landmark to be removed.

01:54A sad day, but we have to move forward.

01:57The ageing TV antenna will be replaced by fibre-optic cabling to carry Dubai's TV stations

02:03around the world.

02:04In the mid-80s, it represented a forward-looking Dubai, eager to show the rest of the region

02:09it was modernising its media.

02:12Now, 20 years on, its removal from Dubai's skyline represents another step in that modernisation.

02:18Ashraf Helmi, Gulf News.