The Israel Broadcast Authority’s first English-language newscast for television aired Sunday night, after eight years of planning that included seemingly endless arguments over who would bear responsibility for the service.
The 15-minute English news bulletin will be broadcast at 8 p.m. each weekday evening, following the regularly scheduled Arabic-language broadcasts and before the start of the news in Hebrew.
On Friday nights, news bulletins in English will be broadcast a half-hour early.
English news broadcasts from Jordan have long been available, albeit with a different political slant. A proposal to air Israel Television’s new English news program at 10 p.m., to directly compete with the Jordanian broadcast, was scrapped because it would pre-empt prime-time favorites, such as the American program “Dynasty.”
Israel Television’s Anan Safadi, a veteran journalist, has been appointed executive producer of the new program.
Safadi, who is from a prominent Arab family in Beit She’an, is equally at home in Hebrew, Arabic and English.
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