QATAR
AL-JAZEERA PLANS ENGLISH LANGUAGE TV CHANNEL
Al-Jazeera's next big plan is to move into English-language television. It
should begin broadcasting before the end of 2004, says editor-in-chief
Ibrahim Helal, after a building to house both the
Arabic and English
stations in Doha, Qatar, is completed. Al-Jazeera enjoys the BBC's
reputation for credibility and, at the same time, moves towards CNN's
faster pace of reporting. The English version will replicate that mixture
of styles. But the question is whether Al-Jazeera in English can replicate
its own success as an Arabic station. Certainly there is little doubt that
an English channel would help boost Al-Jazeera's international profile -
not to mention its advertising revenues. At the moment, these revenues and the money which it makes from selling its programmes to other stations account for a quarter of its annual budget of US$40 million, with the rest coming from the Qatari government's funds. However, according to an article in a respected Kuwaiti newspaper, the United States Congress has secretly proposed to President George W. Bush that he should put pressure on the Qatari government to close Al-Jazeera.
JORDAN
JORDANIAN BROTHERS TO LAUNCH TV CHANNEL
The Ikhwan al-Muslimin (Muslim Brothers) group in Jordan said it is
considering the foundation of a TV station, or an independent radio, after
the call made by the Jordanian commission for audio-visual media for the
private sector and the parties to form broadcasting stations. The official
spokesman for the group, Yahya Shaqra, said that the group has the ambition and the desire to found such stations, due to the importance of the media as "a means of contacts to disseminate the Islamic call."
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