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BBC Arabic
The BBC, with its enormous resources, was never going to be as
constrained in the amount of coverage as RCI. But with the BBC’s
audience and reputation being so high, broadcasting war reportage in
Arabic, to a region with a very close interest in the outcome, was a
huge responsibility.
Gamon McLellan,
head of BBC Arabic, explains.
Coverage
BBC Arabic is, apart from English, the largest and most ambitious of
the 43 languages in which the BBC World Service broadcasts – and
from the beginning of the war in Iraq it broadcast continuous rolling
news 24 hours a day. This was presented both from London and from
its new Cairo Production Centre. Set piece events such as statements
and press conferences by George Bush, Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Donald
Rumsfeld were broadcast live with simultaneous interpretation: so were
military briefings and Parliamentary and UN Security Council debates.
Major statements by the Iraqi leadership were also relayed live. In
addition to the hourly news bulletins, a reporter summed up the main
events every half hour (depending on the broadcasting of live events).
BBC Arabic had two reporters in Baghdad and deployed its Beirut reporter
to Arbil in the Kurdish zone in northern Iraq. A senior editor reported
out of Kuwait alongside the regular reporter there, and an experienced
reporter from the Cairo Centre reported from Amman alongside the
resident reporter. There were reporters also in Istanbul and Tehran, as
well as the Arabic-speaking BBC News reporter in Riyadh. All of these
journalists repeatedly reported live into news programmes round the
clock. Teams of presenters and technical support were deployed from
Cairo to other capitals in the region as the situation unfolded to allow
programming to be presented from different centres. The Cairo
Production Centre, used also by other BBC departments, produced
material also for the website bbcarabic.com.
BBC Arabic used in addition the reporting skills of the BBC’s entire
Newsgathering strength, including the specialist analysis of BBC
defence, diplomatic and other specialist correspondents. The Service
used its own reporters in Washington, Moscow, European and other
capitals to ensure comprehensive news around the clock. This was
backed up by specialist analysts and comment from a range of Arabic-
speaking contributors from different countries – including Britain,
the United States, France, other European capitals, the whole Arab
world and Israel (the Service has a regular cast-list of Arabic speaking
Israeli journalists, academics and politicians who ensure the full range
of Israeli opinion is available to its audiences across the Arab world).
Programming
A Talking Point programme, broadcast twice daily, aired the views of
listeners phoning in live – and like the rolling news programming
also relied on e-mail reaction from listeners. Opinion in the Arab
world was sharply divided – and those divisions were sharply illustrated
in this programme. A help-line was also established to allow listeners
to record personal messages to friends and relatives inside Iraq – the
material was broadcast by a well-known Iraqi presenter in short
packages during the rolling news programming. Well over a thousand
calls were received even before the first programme went on air.
The website bbcarabic.com – which won prizes for best news content
two years running at the GITEX international IT conference in Dubai
Media City - was expanded with additional indices on Iraq and related
issues. It was continually updated 24 hours a day, like the radio, and
carried popular chat fora and voting modules. Traffic soared from
the start of hostilities. The largest number of visitors came from
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, with significant
traffic also from Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, as well as from the Arab
diaspora. There was some traffic from Iraq – although this was
increasingly rare. The website, which was launched in 1998, is of
particular importance in accessing up and coming decision-makers in
the developed areas of the Arab world – a high proportion of visitors
from Saudi Arabia is believed to be women.
Delivery
Additional short wave frequencies into the Eastern Arab world were
used, and the medium wave transmissions were boosted. An additional
FM in northern Jordan covered neighbouring regions (including
Damascus) and supplemented FM coverage from Amman. BBC Arabic
is on FM in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and in Khartoum and Wad Madani
(capital of the populous Al Jazira state in central Sudan). BBC Arabic
and the World Service in English are also available on audio channels
on Nilesat, Arabsat and Orbit, as well as on WorldSpace.
Audience
Accurate measurement during a crisis is difficult, but audiences have
in the past increased hugely during major crises – the high trust and
reliability with which the Service is associated become critical in a war
situation. Anecdotal evidence was that the BBC was the most popular
international radio station in Iraq. From the start of the war, Deputy
Prime MinisterTariq Aziz said he had been listening to the BBC. Reports
from western correspondents in Baghdad also indicated high levels of
listening, and reports from northern Iraq pointed to very large numbers
of regular listeners even before the war. Listening across the Arab
world has in the past soared at times of crisis and conflict, and with
power supplies frequently disrupted during the fighting, BBC Arabic
programming became a major life-line in Iraq. Other international radio
stations did not increase their news output in Arabic to the extent that
the BBC did – and BBC Arabic’s reputation as the leading and most
trusted international radio operation in Arabic was thus underscored.
The challenge was to ensure the station maintained the trust of its
listeners at a time when news judgements were not just particularly
difficult – but sometimes matters of life and death.
