The Channel | 2008 | Issue 1

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BBC Arabic TV Launching in early 2008, the BBC Arabic TV
news and information channel will make BBC World Service
the first media organisation to have a strong tri-media offer
in news, current affairs and information for Arabic-speaking
audiences in the region and around the world. It will initially
broadcast 12 hours a day and be freely available via satellite
or cable. The annual operating cost is £19m.
BBC Persian TV The new BBC World Service TV news and
information service in Farsi for Iran is expected to launch
early in 2008. Based in London, the service will complement
the BBC's existing Persian radio and online services for Iran.
It will initially broadcast for 8 hours a day, 7 days a week,
from 17.00 to 01.00 hours – prime viewing time in Iran. It will
be freely available via satellite or cable in the region. The
operating cost is £15m.
Richard Sambrook, Director BBC Global News, is
responsible for programmes in 33 languages
reaching 240m people. Standing out in an ever
more crowdedmarketplace is a challenge, he says
lmost every
month, a new
global competitor
appears on the
scene. Recently,
France, Iran, the
Arab world,
Italy and Russia have all opened up
new international broadcasting
operations, resulting in an explosion
in competition to provide news
with differing judgements and
differing editorial priorities. This
presents the BBC with a massive
challenge; how to stand out and be
easily identifiable in an ever more
crowded, constantly developing,
marketplace.
In March 2006, independent
public opinion research organisation
GlobeScan carried out a series of
questions on ‘trust and the media’.
It polled over 10,000 people in 10
countries. The BBC rated higher than
any other organisation when it came
to ‘trusting global media brands'.
People get their news in different
ways in different parts of the world.
In areas of Africa and the Far East,
where people are more likely to
have cell phones than computers,
mobiles are the preferred distribution
platform. And more and more
people are using the internet and
or rather
than radio to access their news.
TV DOMINATES MID-EAST
TV is the dominant medium in the
Middle East with more than 300
cable and satellite channels available
across the region. The BBC is
joining them; launching BBC Arabic
TV, part of a multi-platform Arabic
offer across television, radio and
online. Dozens of new staff have been
recruited, and a new multi-media
centre has been created at
Broadcasting House in Central
London. The BBC’s brand is strong
in the Middle East. In repeated
surveys in some 20 major cities 85%
said they wouldwatch BBCArabic TV.
Everything broadcast by the
BBC is now effectively global.
During the outcry in September
2005 about cartoons in a Danish
newspaper that depicted Mohammed
in an allegedly blasphemous way,
there were riots in Pakistan over
rumours that Newsnight, our
domestic late night current Affairs
programme, was going to show the
cartoons in full. It wasn’t, but the
story was out there spread around
the world by email and mobile
phone. Newsnight is only available
in the UK, so the riots were about
something that didn’t happen on a
channel that wouldn’t even be seen
in Pakistan. It’s an example of how
cultural sensitivities cross national
and broadcast boundaries.
FREE MEDIA POSE THREAT
In today’s complex world, the BBC
strives to achieve impartiality by
representing as full and diverse a
range of views as possible. These
have to be weighted according to
who or how many, or how
authoritative a view they represent.
The BBC is dedicated to building
trust between countries, cultures
and communities. Transparency,
accountability and independence
are central to fulfilling that
purpose. Former UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan described the
BBC’s international news services
as “probably Britain’s greatest gift
to the world,” because of the
impact of its journalism.
To those who oppose the building
of open and peaceful societies, free
media pose a dangerous threat –
precisely because of their potential to
empower by increasing understanding
and inspiring free debate. That has
led to attacks on BBC programmes
and the people who make them.
Our services in China and Iran are
effectively blocked. Not because
they are anti Chinese or anti-Muslim
but because they are simply seeking
to make high quality impartial
news available to people who want
it. In Burma, as news of the military
A
Egton House
(right), home to
BBC Arabic TV,
alongside BBC
Broadcasting
House in central
London
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50 | JANUARY08 | THE CHANNEL
THE CHANNEL | FEATURE
crackdown on protests spread via
the internet, the junta closed it
down. And in Pakistan, one of the
first moves under the recent State
of Emergency was to take
international news channels off
the air.
FREE INFORMATION AT A COST
In February 2005 BBC producer
Kate Peyton was shot and killed in
Mogadishu, a city where the only
source of reliable news is the BBC’s
Somali service. And BBC
correspondent Alan Johnston was
kidnapped and held hostage for 114
days in Gaza, where he had
reported from for three years.
It is well to remember that
there’s sometimes an unacceptable
cost to keeping world society
informed while promoting
openness, fairness, economic and
political development. ■
BBCWORLDSERVICE
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