BBC Arabic Television

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This article or section contains information about a future television channel.
It is likely to contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the channel launch approaches and more information becomes available.

BBC Arabic Television will be a news and information television channel broadcast to the Middle East by the BBC. The service was announced in October 2005 and is due to start broadcasting in Autumn 2007. It will be run by the BBC World Service; as such, it will be funded from a grant from the British Foreign Office and not the television licence that is used to fund the BBC's domestic broadcasts. The service will be based at the BBC's Broadcasting House in London.

Initially the service will broadcast for 12 hours per day. During the other twelve hours audio and text will be broadcast.

This is not the first time that the BBC has attempted to set up an Arabic television service. The previous attempt closed on April 21, 1996, after 2 years on air, when the BBC's partners, Orbit Communications Corporation (owned by King Fahd's cousin, Prince Khaled[1]) pulled the plug after the BBC broadcast an episode of Panorama that was critical of the Saudi Arabian government. Many of the staff who worked for the original BBC Arabic Television service went on to work for Al Jazeera television.[2] Al Jazeera will be one of the new BBC service's main competitors.