British Broadcasting Corporation launched its Arabic TV news channel on March 11 to add another outlet to the competitive market of television news in the Arab world.
Though BBC claims it is not competing with Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, the idea of choice for the Arabic viewer means competition of the communicators to catch his attention. Not only Al Jazeera, and to some extent Al Arabiya, but even Al Manar of Hezbollah is a potential competitor - if we consider the hot spots and news flash areas.
When the BBC started its Arabic service radio 70 years ago, people were still remembering its name was not BBC, but Voice of the Empire.
Arabic service was part of the foreign language services, now BBC World Service, and the most significant among more than 40 language services. Though a lot of water flowed under many bridges, the Arabic "Voice of the Empire" is coming out now as "Image of the Empire".
Just before the paradigm shift in the Arab media by the launch of Qatari news channel Al Jazeera, BBC launched a failed news channel in a business venture with a Saudi company that did not last a year on air. Since then, BBC has been longing to launch its own news channel and it took too long.
During that decade, its radio lost some ground to new FM stations in the Gulf and North Africa. So, now the British public broadcaster is trying to regain some of its lost share of the Arab viewership through its fully public-funded channel.
Official rhetoric claims that BBC Arabic TV is not competing with existing news channels, but aims at delivering a different product based on the accumulated experience of long decades of producing accurate, objective and impartial news to the Arab world.
Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya welcomed the new channel as an addition to the Arabic media scene, enhancing diversity and offering more choice for the benefit of the viewer. Fine, but the reality is that everybody is waiting to see the impact and how to adapt to it as every broadcaster aims at keeping his share of the audience, if not increase it, definitely at the expense of others.
Trusted by many
The non-competition notion might be true if you compare the BBC with Al Hurra or Russia Today, but when it comes to Al Jazeera it is irrelevant. The Americans, French and Russians - even the Germans - launched television news channels in Arabic in the last few years, trying to get their views through to the Arab masses watching Al Jazeera and other emerging Arabic news channels. Their success is limited so far, and the British are trusted among a big chunk of the Arab public when it comes to media and politics - at least more than the Americans and other Europeans.
As for the regional broadcasters in Arabic, the BBC might have come out a bit late but it still can draw on the credibility of the radio in the golden days when people used to get the news flashing on Monte Carlo (the French public radio in Arabic) or CNN but still tune to Radio London to get the accurate version and in-depth analysis. Of course Al Jazeera attracted most of those listeners-turned-viewers, but still the BBC can reclaim some back.
With no big wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and fewer messages from Osama Bin Laden, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya are no more getting tens of millions of viewers.
The ongoing war in Palestine and political impasse in Lebanon is no longer breaking news. Thawing the ice in Qatari-Saudi relations is closing the gap of difference between the two channels in covering news involving US and Israel. More and more these channels are moving towards the playing field of the BBC - objective and apolitical coverage of news.
Here, the new Image of the Empire can have some edge, especially when it comes to politically sensitive issues or global news from areas traditionally well-covered by the BBC. Though it is too early to judge, what has been claimed looks true - BBC Arabic TV is a bit different from other Arabic international broadcasters and not much different from the regional broadcasters.
The best test for all will be a big event in the region with all parties' interests at stake. Their way of coverage will determine if Arab audiences would prefer news from Doha, Dubai or London - or even Beirut or Tehran.
Let us wait and see.
Dr Ahmad Mustafa is a London-based Arab writer.
