New Farsi TV channel launches on 18 December

[Analoguesat]

The Board of Iranian Christian Broadcasting (ICB) has announced that ICB will merge with SAT-7 and launch its new Farsi-language channel on 18 December 2006. SAT-7 Pars will become a semi-autonomous unit of SAT-7, providing quality Christian TV programming for Persian satellite viewers in Iran, Afghanistan and adjacent countries.

The new channel, SAT-7 Pars will offer 20 hours of Farsi Christian programming daily and another four hours a day in Turkish. “Pars” is a commonly used term in and around Iran to refer to Persians and things Persian.

Since its first broadcast in September 2002, ICB partnered with the Arabic language Christian satellite channel, SAT-7 to broadcast a block of Farsi-language programmes that has grown from 2- to 18-hours a week. At recent meetings of the SAT-7 and ICB Boards, it was agreed to merge the two organizations, with a view to maximizing resources, sharing staff and facilities and providing better complementary services for viewers across the region.

SAT-7 Pars will operate as a semi-autonomous channel within the SAT-7 family of ministries, much as ICB previously did under the legal and financial umbrella of SAT-7. Initially, SAT-7 Pars will add 4 hours of new programming to its schedule every day – programmes designed to support the needs of the Persian Christian minority in the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as Farsi speaking expatriates in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

SAT-7 Pars will also devote 4 hours a day of broadcast time for TURK-7, an independent Turkish language ministry based in Istanbul. The two languages are natural broadcast partners because many Farsi speakers also speak Turkish or other Turkic-based languages. This includes Azeri’s who make up about 30% of the population of Iran. TURK-7 intends to increase its broadcast hours in the future.

SAT-7 Pars will begin its new four-hour block of programmes each evening. These blocks will then air a total of four times in a week, rotating into an earlier time slot each successive day. Viewers who may miss one episode of their favourite programme will now have several opportunities to see it over the next 4 days as it rotates through the time slots.

SAT-7 estimates that more than 20 million people in Iran have access to and regularly view satellite television.

Tuning information:

Hotbird 6
transponder 157, 11,642 MHz
Horizontal Polarity
27.5 MSym/sec
FEC 3/4


Source: SAT-7