Al Jazeera is preparing to launch yet another first in Arab broadcasting in the shape of Al Jazeera Live, a new specialised media service that will air live conferences, meetings, discussions and other gatherings covering political, social, cultural, economic and other issues of relevance. The new service is similar to c-span in the USA, and will entail neither anchor people nor an editing process.
The new service is expected to start transmission on 15th April, 2005, and will take in Al Jazeera Television Production Festival, an event planned to be held in Doha on 18-21 April, 2005 as one of its early broadcasts.
Managing Director Wadah Khanfar said that initially the service will be received via Arabsat satellite, adding that it is planned to widen the footprint by utilizing other satellites in the near future.
Al Jazeera Live joins existing media services, namely its flagship, the Arabic language news service, the two web sites (in Arabic and English) and Al Jazeera Sports. Al Jazeera will also be launching new services in Al Jazeera International (the English language news service) as well as a documentary and childrens channels. Al Jazeeras Media Training and Development Centre has been operational for over a year now, accommodating media needs domestically and regionally.