BBC Arabic

Yep - Arabsat, Nilesat and Eutelsat carriage confirmed today by the BBC internal website.

From the BBC Press Office...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2008/03_march/03/arabic.shtml

Thanks to the magic of google translator:

About the new BBC Arabic service

Programme information

Presenter Profiles

Original versions linked from http://bbcarabic.com/tv

I think this is probably the first public release of some of the branding.

Some of these female presenters are bloody gorgeous!

I wonder if a stream or anything will be available in the UK like World Service is.

Google translator isn't perfect

Wouldn't be surprised if there was a video stream - otherwise you'll have to have a dish pointed at the right satellite to get it...

It will be streamed, same quality as News 24 streams at. Although in the 4:3 resolution (which I forget) not 400x224 used for 16:9. Link will go up on bbcarabic.com/tv just before the launch.

The multicast encoders at Bush will be reconnected shortly (I've seen the SCRs) so those 'on the inside' at W1 and W12 should be able to receive it over the IP ringmain at their PC if the channel is not available on their local RF ringmain (it's channel 100 on the digital RF ringmain at Bush).

AlJazeera's Listening Post just had a report on the BBC Arabic channel. The set looked very much like the News 24/World set. Perspex glass, clear at the top, at the bottom there was a red light. The desk looked square, and the backdrop was most of the newsroom, plasma screens and the gallery.

The titles seemed very much like this:
http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh24/justjoshhh/_44461691_news.jpg
However, the BBC logo seemed much bigger, and it animated like some of the promo's on BBC One, were the BBC logo rotates like 3D cubes.

The website looked very red aswell!

Edit: Just found this on YouTube, as I said, very much like News 24/World set: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MylfjAv-AwQ&NR=1

Thanks for that. Managed to record the repeat and watch it back today, I see Arabic TV got a whole 45 seconds. Which is fair enough, you wouldn't expect any news channel to promote a rival channel in a big way.

You are right about the Arabic studio, looks exactly like World/N24. But the studio is much smaller so expect a surprise on the wide shot.



I was talking to people in Future Media on Friday and they tell me the website will be rolled out gradually over Monday so everything is in place ready for Tuesday, And there have been some last minute changes to the live streaming, so the internet will be getting the full 16:9 feed now rather than the ARCed feed that goes to satellite.

Of all the things that could have leaked from Egton and found their way on to YouTube I was not expecting something quite as bland as that! Although it is nice to see all the branding and presentation is still pretty much a secret and won't be unvailed properly until the 11th. I'll be interested to see how quickly after launch the Arabic TOTH sequence gets posted on YouTube

I was looking on AlJazeera's YouTube page to check if Listening Post had been added. The set looked a bit "Setanta Sports News" in red, but there's still something about it which looked a tad better. One thing I'm very interested about is the music.. will be interesting to see if there is a hint of David Lowe in it or not. Also the graphics, I imagine they will have some pink theme to them, as the titles actually looked more pink than red on screen.

Here we are:
http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh24/justjoshhh/bbcarabic.jpg
Looks like theres a screen on the front of the desk... looks nice.

Listening Post is up now: 8:53 in Here

Do you recon these titles we've seen could be a sign of what's to come in the BBC News rebrand?. they look quite good