Israel Satellite TV chooses Al-Jazeera over BBC

[Teddy Bear]

I just came over a news report today that last December the Israel Satellite TV company 'YES' has dropped the BBC on favour of the English broadcasts of Al-Jazeera. This speaks volumes for how biased the BBC is perceived to be there. At least with Al-Jazeera, there's no masquerade of it being impartial and balanced.

BBC World dropped by Israeli satellite TV


Tara Conlan
Wednesday December 13, 2006
MediaGuardian.co.uk


BBC World has been dropped by Israel's satellite provider Yes TV in favour of the newly launched al-Jazeera English.
It is the first major distribution blow the corporation's international news channel has suffered since al-Jazeera's English-language service began broadcasting last month.

Although BBC World will still be available in Israel via cable, it will lose around 50% of its audience in the country as a result of being dropped by Yes.

Al-Jazeera English signed the carriage deal with Yes last month, but the damaging consequences for BBC World have only just emerged.

One BBC executive said: "We are disappointed but hopefully they will come back to the negotiations."

The deal with Yes takes al-Jazeera English's global reach to around 80m households.

The market for rolling international news is become increasingly crowded, with new rivals to BBC World and CNN.

In addition to the launch of al-Jazeera English, France 24 began broadcasting last week.

The BBC has had a difficult time over its coverage of Israel, with regular accusations of bias coming from both the Israeli and Palestinian sides.

[steevo]

Good article.

Stuck with such a choice of propaganda providers, it is sickening. I'm wondering why they would chose any of them unless so often is the case their forced into the lesser of evils for reasons of world opinion.

I think they made the best choice. People won't be quite as easily taken knowing its from al-Jazeera. In time maybe they can go back to the BBC for the same reason