
The service is based in the Peel Wing of Broadcasting House in London. Initially it was funded from a grant-in-aid from the British Foreign Office but in 2014 funding was switched to come from the television licence that is mainly used to fund the BBC's domestic broadcasting. Initially broadcasting for 12 hours a day, 24-hour programming began on 19 January 2009.īBC Arabic Television is run by the BBC World Service. The channel eventually relaunched at 0956 GMT on 11 March 2008, with the first news bulletin airing at the top of the hour at 1000. Plans to relaunch the channel were announced in October 2005 and broadcasting was to start in Autumn 2007, but was delayed until 2008. Many of the staff who worked for the original BBC Arabic Television service were eventually employed by Al Jazeera, now one of BBC Arabic Television's main competitors. When it became clear to Orbit and Mawarid that it had, in their terms, created a monster not prepared to toe the Saudi line, it was only a matter of time before there would be a final parting of the ways.
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Ian Richardson, who set up the news department during that time blamed the short life of the channel on a clash with the owners over content.ĭuring the short life of BBC Arabic Television, there were several angry ‘liaison meetings’ with Orbit and the guarantees of editorial independence proved to be a sour joke, only barely obscured by a thin smokescreen about the BBC's alleged failure to observe "cultural sensitivities" – Saudi code for anything not to the Royal Family's liking. On 21 April 1996, it was "pulled off the air" following an episode of Panorama that was critical of the Saudi Arabian government. In 1994, BBC Arabic Television was launched by Rome-based Orbit Communications Company (owned by King Fahd's cousin, Prince Khalid ibn Abdullah) and a subsidiary of the Saudi Arabian Mawarid Holding. It is run by the BBC World Service and funded from the British television licence fee.


BBC News Arabic ( Arabic: بي بي سي نيوز عربي), formerly BBC Arabic Television, is a television news channel broadcast to the Arab World by the BBC.
