Television
In 2008, the BBC announced the launch of the BBC Persian Television, which is based in BBC Broadcasting House: as BBC's Press Office website states
BBC World Service is to launch a television news and information service in the Persian language for Iran. BBC Persian television was launched in January 2009 and is based in London. It complements the BBC's existing Persian-language radio and online services. It is initially broadcast for eight hours a day, seven days a week, from 17.00 to 01.00 hours – peak viewing time in Iran. It is freely available to anyone with a satellite dish in the region.BBC proposals for the service were drawn up by senior BBC management. These were approved by the then BBC Governors – the body that oversaw the BBC and ensures the BBC's independence from the UK Government. They were then submitted to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) for their consent as the BBC is obliged to do under the agreement with the FCO.
The operating cost of £15m a year will be funded by the UK Government. Funding for the new service was announced by then UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in a speech in October 2006. The funding was confirmed by the next Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling in October 2007. Some 140 staff are employed of which about 40 are support personnel.
Read more about this topic: BBC Persian
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create “one world.” Instead of one world, we have “star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“Addison DeWitt: Your next move, it seems to me, should be toward television.
Miss Caswell: Tell me this. Do they have auditions for television?
Addison DeWitt: That’s all television is, my dear. Nothing but auditions.”
—Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993)
“It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)