The last time that the BBC tried to launch an Arabic television channel, in 1996, it collapsed. Its partners in Saudi Arabia pulled out of the commercially funded channel over a Panorama report on human rights abuses in the Kingdom. In the wake of the debacle, several employees went on to found al-Jazeera.

More than a decade on and al-Jazeera is an established voice in the region, yet the BBC believes that there is room for its “authoritative and impartial” Arabic-language service to be launched into a crowded media marketplace on Monday.

Funded by a £25 million Foreign and Commonwealth Office grant, BBC Arabic TV promises a mix of news and debate, drawing on the corporation’s network of more than 250 correspondents in 72 bureaux worldwide. It will be freely available to anyone with a satellite or cable connection from North Africa to the Gulf. And its impending arrival is provoking strong emotions.

The Dubai-based Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC) accused the BBC of “kidnapping” staff to run the new channel, which aims to take 20 million viewers over five years from al-Jazeera and its rival al-Arabiya. The BBC, which says that it hired all staff fairly, secured Foreign Office backing for the channel using research that found that up to 90 per cent of potential viewers were “very likely” or “fairly likely” to tune in.

Several World Service radio channels in Eastern Europe have been closed to help to fund the new channel, but it will face tough competition. Al-Jazeera claims 50 million viewers in the region and operates on double the BBC budget. Moreover, initially the BBC challenger will run for 12 hours a day only, with a round-the-clock operation due in the summer.

“It should have launched as a 24-hour service to compete with so many established brands in the region,” Faisal Abbas, media editor at Asharq al-Awsat, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper, said.

Nevertheless, Mr Abbas added: “There is a lot of anticipation for the new channel, given the reputation the BBC has in the region.” Presenters such as Lina Musharbash, a former MBC reporter, and Hasan Muawad, a veteran interviewer akin to Sir David Frost, will be well-known to viewers.

Nigel Chapman, BBC World Service director, said that the channel would “cover the Arab world for the Arab world” and that this would be reflected in the way in which stories such as the violence in Gaza were presented. Despite Britain’s support for the United States-led invasion of Iraq, the BBC’s Arabic radio service, established more than 70 years ago, has maintained its credibility. However, reports on the television service must not demonstrate any “pro-Arab” bias and should be editorially consistent with other BBC output. If BBC Arabic receives an al-Qaeda tape, like its rivals, it would be judged on “news-worthiness”, Mr Chapman said. Footage of coalition troops killed in Iraq or Afghanistan would be shown sparingly and with due sensitivity to their families.

Although carried in part by the Riyadh-based Arabsat network, Mr Chapman said that the service would not shy away from controversial topics, such as corruption within Gulf governments. In reality, critics say, the channel cannot survive if it offends local sensitivities.

The BBC will also launch a fully interactive multimedia offering as it tries to use new technology to leapfrog well-established rivals, including a revamped BBC Arabic website.

El Sokkari, the channel’s boss, will present one of the launch shows, Nuqtat Hewar (Point of Debate). “It will be a regional conversation that’s outspoken and controversial – but never boring,” he promised. The BBC, however, will be hoping that the controversy is confined to within the programme, not to the way in which the channel reports the news, or is judged to report the news.

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