According to the collaboration, Afghanistan’s national TV channel will host BBC News Persian's weekly programmes including current affairs, interviews, and debates.
Five programmes from BBC News Persian are being added to the schedule of Afghanistan’s national TV channel, Ariana News. According to the rebroadcasting collaboration, BBC News Persian will bring Ariana News viewers the news and analysis programme Shast Daghigeh (60 Minutes), Saturday to Wednesday.
It will also include the weekly programmes: the current-affairs programme Safheh Do (Page 2 weekend), the interview programme Be-ebarat-eh Digar (HARDtalk), the debate programme Pargar (Compass), and the guide to digital technology, Click.
BBC News Persian has a global weekly audience of 21m on TV, radio and digital. It currently reaches around 8.5m people in Afghanistan every week.
The BBC reaches 12.1m people in Afghanistan every week – 59% of the adult population – with content from BBC News Afghan in Pashto and Dari, BBC News Persian, BBC News Uzbek and the BBC’s English-language news content on radio, TV and digital. BBC News Persian TV is broadcast via satellite (Hotbird, YahSat and Telstar 12) and streamed live online (and available on demand) on bbc.com/persian and YouTube.
Commenting on the collaboration, BBC World Service Director of Business Development, Simon Kendall, said: “We are delighted that through this new partnership with Ariana News a suite of BBC News Persian programmes will be available to audiences in Afghanistan. We are excited to be increasing BBC presence on TV in the region and we hope that audiences will enjoy our programmes alongside our digital and audio offer. We look forward to working with Ariana as we establish this important new agreement.”
Ariana News is part of Ariana Radio & Television Network (ATN). ATN’s Managing Director, Ali Kasemi, added: “ATN was founded in 2005 with a mission to provide our viewers with a ‘Window to the World’ so that all Afghans could watch, share, and enjoy the best global news, entertainment, sports and information from around the world. We are very proud to be adding BBC News Persian’s award-winning programming to our content package, and we see this partnership as an exciting continuation of our commitment to bring the world to Afghan viewers and families around the nation.”
