BBC World has recently announced that it is starting an Arabic-language television news service in the Middle East. The funding for this venture has been raised by shutting down ten foreign language broadcasts, mostly in Eastern Europe. That seems like quite a trade-off but BBC is firm on their decision. The New York Times reported,
Discussing the decision to close the 10 language services, Mr. Chapman said the BBC had to move with the times. Listener figures have fallen steadily in Europe, and many of the services being closed were opened after World War II and were far more relevant through the cold war than they are now. All the services to be canceled - the broadcasts in Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Kazakh, Polish, Slovak, Slovene and Thai - cover countries that are either part of the European Union or are likely to join, or have few listeners, the BBC said.
The service is scheduled to start in 2007 and will be competing with Al-Jazeera, which has announced an English language service next year. An American based Arabic-language network Al Hurra was launched last year , and met with minimal success.
These developments seem to be the result of the growing importance of reaching out to a vast audience in the Middle East. The key question is how much viewership and credibility BBC’s venture will receive from a region, where such ventures are seen as nothing more than thinly veiled forms of propaganda.
If this service is able to overcome skepticism towards western media in the Middle Eastern and establish credibility, it will open new avenues for debate. However, that is quite an ambitious goal, and we can only wait and watch to see how this latest attempt to engage the elusive Middle East audience pans out.
willemmarx @ October 29, 2005 - 7:01pm
I'm afraid I have to disagree with you in part about this Rabia. For a long time in many parts of the Middle East, the BBC's arabic language radio, as part of the World Service, has been a highly popular and highly respected source of news. Ask any upper middle class member or society who listens to radio in Syria, Jordan, Iraq or the Gulf States, and more than likely they will agree with my assertion.
If you read the press-releases by the BBC on why they closed down the Eastern European language services, the director of the World Service explains that the BBC no longer feels the need to serve these communities, as there are broadcasters whose views and modi operandi are commensurate with the kind of reporting and freedom of speech which the BBC tried to promote during the Cold War.
The BBC are trying to capitalise on the success of their Arabic language radio, which has been in existence for a long period of time now, and need to reallocate resources from Eastern Europe to pay for this. What is undeniable, and this is where the feeling that propaganda plays a part in all this, is the fact that the British Foreign Office gives grants to the BBC's World Service as a way of, "promoting British values overseas." This is highly dubious rhetoric, and the US' launch of Al-Hurriah and Al-Iraqiya in Iraq, are equally sketchy, funded by the equivalent branch of government, the State Department.
I am not sure that the BBC are competing with Al-Jazeera specifically, given that Al-Jazeera International are launching their English language channel, but I can tell you that when Al-Jazeera launched in 1996, they recruited a number of ex-BBC Arabic employees, and have recently recruited a doyen of BBC news, Sir David Frost, to be one of their anchors when they launch this spring.
Interestingly, from my experience in Iraq, although many people were dubious of Al-Hurriah and Al-Iraqiya, the State Dept-run channel, because of its US-funding, there was still a decently high market share because the programs and news were well-packaged in comparison to other local stations.
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