BBC to launch the BBC Urdu TV Channel
After successful launch of BBC Arabic and BBC Persian recently, there are reports that BBC is planning a round-the-clock TV channel in Urdu language, BBC Urdu. According to BroadcastNow, BBC Urdu will target audiences in India and Pakistan, and sit alongside the corporation’s well-established online and radio offerings in the same language.
The BBC has yet to secure funding or permission for the Urdu service but it is expected the channel would be paid for by UK taxpayers through a Foreign Office grant-in-aid. Both BBC Arabic and BBC Persian are funded by taxpayers, to the tune of £25m and £15m a year respectively.
Let’s hope that this plan materializes. Previously, Aljazeera announced to launch Aljazeera Urdu a few years back but it seems that they have shelved the plans as no updates were heard after that.
The recently launched BBC Arabic and BBC Persian tends to follow the same standards in news reporting, analysis and presentation as their parent channel (BBC World) do. Please see the following videos showing countdown and start of news bulletins of BBC Arabic and BBC Persian respectively. The music and presentation is cool!
BBC Arabic
BBC Persian
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Comments
Moiz,
You are quite right. The strange thing is that why BBC is targeting Middle East and Pakistan only? BBC Arabic and BBC Persian are the only foreign language channels in which BBC TV is broadcasting. Why we don’t have BBC Chinese or BBC French, when their target market is quite bigger?
So, it is quite evident that it is just propaganda tool by the British and nothing else.
If this channel will be for India & Pakistan, which script it will use? Hindi script or Urdu script? Hindi and Urdu may sound same in speaking but very different in writing. I guess this difference will be a hurdle for this channel and may result in failure of starting of BBC Urdu.
Beenish,
You are right that in speaking its same but it would not be hurdle to them to start this because their actual target is Pakistan and not India, and in India there is a majority of people who can read and write Urdu very easily.
This is another way of propaganda and smoothly change the minds of people. Western world is very smart in these kinds of acts, Britishers used this kind of propaganda during world wars as well. I think Pakistan must take stand and not to allow BBC Urdu to be aired in Pakistan. Although we have pro-American news channels like Geo. Iran Intelligence chief shows his concerns of BBC Persian as a security threat and I think he is right.