BBC World Service is to continue its move into international television. The London-based
broadcaster announced on 10 October that it plans to launch a television news
and information service in Farsi (Persian) for Iran, complementing the broadcaster says – its existing Persian
radio and online services for Iran. The BBC said that it
expected to launch Farsi TV early in 2008 from
London. The new service will initially broadcast for
eight hours a day, seven days a week, from 1700 to 0100 local time in Iran
which, the BBC says, is peak viewing time in Iran, and will be available via
free-to-air satellite and on as yet unnamed cable services.
Unlike the Arabic-language TV service that is
due to launch next year that is funded from the existing “grant-in-aid” from the
UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the new Farsi-language service will be
funded from an additional budget announced by UK Chancellor of the Exchequer
Gordon Brown. The operating cost of £15m a year will be funded by the UK
Government. There were protests when funds for the new Arabic-language TV
service were found from BBC World Services existing budget which led to the
closure of some smaller radio language services, including Thai.
BBC World Service Director Nigel
Chapman said: “The BBC’s Persian radio and online services are
well-respected by Iranians, especially by opinion formers. In Iran we are
regarded as the most trusted and objective of all international broadcasters for
the way we provide impartial news and information about the wider world and the
crucial part Iran is playing on the regional and global stage. But television is
increasingly dominating the way that millions of Iranian people receive their
news.
“Therefore the BBC proposed to the Foreign
Office that we launch a television service in Farsi to complement our existing
independent news and information services for Iran on radio and online. Like all
BBC services, the new television service will be editorially independent of the
UK Government. I am delighted the BBC Farsi television service proposal has been
given the go-ahead.”
The BBC’s Farsi television service will draw
upon the BBC’s international newsgathering resources and the organisation says
that it will “showcase accurate, impartial, balanced news and analysis from a
global perspective”. The channel will also show investigative current affairs
programmes, alongside quality BBC factual, cultural and educational
documentaries.
Voice of America TV has run a Farsi-language
TV service for some time read about it in the AIBs magazine, The Channel
(April 2006 edition, pp40-42), which can be downloaded
here. You can find a download library for back issues of The Channel
here, and subscribe to this increasingly influential and important global
media magazine
here.