BBC - the Bush-Blair Coalition - starts TV service in Iraq
Well, the day's main media story developed with breathtaking speed, and for perhaps the only time since it opened, I actually found some useful information on the official 10 Downing Street Web site. There you'll find lots of information about the coalition's new TV service for Iraq, Towards Freedom TV (in Arabic: 'nahoo al-hurriya' ). You can view the text of the messages to the people of Iraq that Bush and Blair recorded during their Northern Ireland meeting - and even watch them in streaming Real Video if you're desperate for something to do! More information on our main Iraq media news page.
The transmission in Iraq was scheduled to go out at 1400 UTC, but even before that some TV stations were carrying extracts of it. Tarek said he saw about 2 seconds on Abu Dhabi TV, apparently as a result of a switching error. In The Netherlands, NOS had it with Dutch subtitles on top of the Arabic subtitles, which must have infuriated the 41,000 Iraqis living here :-)
The TV service was apparently masterminded by the British, but 80% of the material will originate in the US - some things never change :-) The Brits seem very proud of the fact that the whole thing was put together in eight days, about the same time it takes a TV repair man in the UK to come and fix your set. Now, if they could only get things like law and order, food distribution and medical supplies in Iraq sorted out that fast, I'm sure the population would really appreciate it.
I was interested to see that they even included all the technical stuff about Commando Solo. Now, maybe I'm getting cynical in my old age, but I venture to suggest that this isn't so much Number 10 being interested in DXing and shortwave listening as the person charged with putting the information on the Web site being incapable of deciding what information is relevant and what isn't.
We also had a report from a Russian news agency that one of their correspondents had heard Iraqi radio last night hailing the fall of Saddam. It looks as if the correspondent - if he heard anything at all - was listening to an opposition station as there's no state radio on the air in Baghdad, and today BBC Monitoring could still hear pro-Saddam broadcasts coming - presumably - from northern Iraq. But with today's military developments, I doubt they'll be on for much longer.
7:59:11 PM 
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