BBC Arabic

You would need to have a second dish, a dish with two LNBs (the bits that actually receive and downconvert the signal), or a motorised system. I don't know if a Sky box will tune to BBC Arabic (you'd have to use the ADD CHANNELS/OTHER CHANNELS options and need an LNB switch or external motorised controller)

Much easier to watch it online unless you are an enthusiast and want other channels that are kicking around. A good motorised dish and receiver can give you thousands of international channels (no exaggeration)

(And the satellite is the thing floating in geostationary orbit 22,000 miles above the equator beaming the signals down to you... You don't have a satellite yourself - you have a satellite dish, LNB and receiver...)

The FCO granted the additional funding for the 24 hour service in the recent settlement, so it will happen later this (financial) year. No specific date has been set yet, or if it has then it has not been cascaded down to those involved in running the service.


13E is where you will find the service on satellite in Europe. Since there are a number of other Arabic language channels on the same satellite anyone with an interest in Arabic language television and radio is likely to already have a dish pointing there instead of/in addition to Sky Digital at 28E.

I'm not ruling out it becoming available at 28E, but there are other parts of the world with a substantial Arabic diaspora that are a priority to provide satellite coverage to first. Since the channel is FCO funded rather than commercially funded like BBC World, there are no restrictions to it going on Sky Digital/Freesat in the future.

Does anyone know when BBC Persian and BBC Farsi will launch? Are these three (Persian, Farsi and Arabic) the only international news channels launching, or are there going to be any more?

Persian and Farsi are the same language.

Sorry. Farsi is what they call Persian in Persian.

I so wish it was BBC News that created the graphics, their work is now looking like a class act! BBC Arabic looks a millions times better then any other BBC News outlet.

Here's a better version of the first 7 mins of the launch, including one of the countdowns and the TOTH - without it being ridiculously out of sync!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwxXLZcCTb4

Well, I hate to break this to you. But the Arabic branding is only intended as a temporary measure, since the new BBC News branding was not due to be ready before the Arabic launch.

BBC Persian will launch with the BBC News branding, and BBC Arabic will adopt the News branding. No date has been set for a rebrand - I suspect it would be after Persian launch using the then freed up design and technical resources.

Looks like someone has ripped off the video fromthis link and uploaded it.

There are only a limited number of places to get the 16:9 version from

Couldn't resist. Remixed the BBC Arabic sound and vision to make it a "true" countdown!

http://www.factorfiles.com/BBC/Arabic2008Countdown.flv

are the BBC serious, why would they want to replace their impressive graphics with the latest BBC News rubbish?

i don't see why they feel the need to make BBCArabic and the English language news output look more uniform, it's unlikely that people will watch both. And if they really want to use the same graphics, well, maybe it's the BBCArabic's graphics that should be extended to World and BBCNews. They are clearly superior.