Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING (see also Public Diplomacy)
New BBC channel to take on al-Jazeera by Jon Boone 
New BBC channel to take on al-Jazeera By Jon Boone in London FT.com, June 23 2004 21:54 The British Broadcasting Corporation is planning to go head-to-head with al-Jazeera by launching an Arab-language television channel to broadcast news across the Middle East 24 hours a day. The plan is the brain-child of the Foreign Office, which wants to develop a counter-weight to Arab-run satellite stations that have proved hugely popular in the region but irked Washington and London with what the two governments see as remorselessly anti-western output. The station will be modelled on BBC World - the existing international television service - with most programmes broadcast from London but staff based around the Middle East. Running costs are estimated at £28m a year. A request for government funding, which will be kept separate from the World Service's existing budgets, has been included in the Foreign Office's 2004 Spending Review and will have to be approved by the Treasury before the station can be given the green light. The Foreign Office declined to be drawn on details of the plan. A spokeswoman said: "This particular proposal is still under discussion and we have asked the World Service to look at various aspects of it before we could come to a final conclusion." The prospect of a new station surfaced during a hearing of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday. Nigel Chapman, acting director of the World Service, told MPs that the proposed station's mix of news, discussion programmes and documentaries would address "the dramatically changed media landscape in the Middle East". "We know from our research that people trust the BBC brand and if more people could access it in their own language it would have a major impact," Mr Chapman said. Although recent audience research shows the World Service has suffered "significant losses" in ratings in Saudi Arabia, traditionally an important market for its Arabic programming, the BBC denied the television station was a response to listeners deserting its radio services. Audience numbers were improving in the Middle East, it said. The BBC said that it was a logical approach to the developing media market in the Middle East where there was now a need to offer a "tri-media" package of radio, television and web-based publishing. The station will also be available to viewers in the UK and the rest of Europe. Fabian Hamilton, a member of the committee, said: "I would be absolutely amazed if the BBC's audience in the Middle East had not collapsed because the Arab world is now absolutely distrustful of the BBC." He added: "People no longer see the BBC as utterly impartial but as the voice of the United States - albeit a rather more civilised voice." In February the US launched a similar Arab-language station that is broadcast from studios in Washington. It prompted fury from Arab commentators with one senior Saudi cleric issuing an edict forbidding Muslims to watch it. |