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Thu 19 Jun, 2003 08:03 am
First American Muslim Television Channel
By Dar Al-Hayat - (2003-05-09)
New York-based Bridges Network, Inc., announced last week that it will launch Bridges TV, the first ever nationwide English-language Muslim television channel in North America. The expected launch date is summer 2004, pending how quickly the network can gather the 10,000 paying members necessary to demonstrate public support.
Bridges TV, which will be broadcast from Manhattan, will emphasize news stories, and talk shows, wholesome sitcoms, advice shows, children's programming and movies about Muslim life in America. Programming will mostly be created, since an English-language genre targeting American Muslims does not exist.
The venture is spearheaded by Muzzammil S. Hassan, MBA, a bank vice-president in New York and Omar S. Amanat, founder of Tradescape, an Internet brokerage firm. Mr. Amanat sold Tradescape last year to E*Trade for $280,000,000.
Amanat learned early on that even at the height of his financial success on Wall Street, public perceptions of Muslims prevented him from being fully accepted.
"I realized that the only way to undo misconceptions was to create our own media forum from which our stories and culture would be shared with the world. Other cultural groups have gained acceptance and increased understanding through the forum of media. Why can't Muslims do the same?"
Channels such as Telemundo and the Black Entertainment Television network have appealed to cultural niche markets. Bridges TV hopes to follow a similar model and create a diverse genre of programming that members of the American Muslim community can identify with. That group is composed approximately one-quarter each of South Asian, African-American, Arab and Others.
Hassan noted that most members of these groups are moderate Muslims who cannot identify with the extreme stereotypes often depicted in Hollywood productions.
"They think they are not accurately portrayed," he said. "Bridges TV gives American Muslims a voice and will depict them in everyday, real life situations."
Bridges TV differentiates itself from such foreign language programming as Zee TV (Hindi), Prime TV (Urdu) and ART TV (Arabic), which are broadcast in foreign languages and focus on life experiences in foreign countries. These channels are popular among immigrant parents, but not with their U.S. born children. "Our channel is in English and about life in America. We want a Muslim child who grows up in America to be able to watch our channel and identify with the characters, or to be engaged by the dialogue of issues pertinent to him or her," said Amanat.
Amanat added that stories that shed light on the significant contributions of American Muslims to modern science, art and entertainment remain untold and will be a focus of Bridges TV programming. The network seeks to feature sitcoms that represent American Muslim family life. The Cosby Show, which portrayed a positive representation of African-American family life, is a model for such sitcom programming.
Creation of a channel that features American Muslims comes at a time when the media spotlight is increasingly focused on this population. The channel hopes to "build bridges" of understanding by providing Muslims an opportunity to express their views and opinions about their faith and lifestyle.
Given the estimated eight million Muslims living in North America, the channel is long overdue, according to network officials. And studies sponsored by Bridges TV have found that American Muslims are willing to pay as much as $10 per month above and beyond their current cable or satellite fee for the channel.
According to a Zogby 2000 survey, at an annual growth of 6%, the American Muslim population, which at present makes a sizable market, is expected to double to 15 million in the next ten years.
Although targeted primarily at a North-American Muslim audience, company officials anticipate that Bridges TV will have some cross-over appeal to other Americans due to world-wide interest about Islam and Muslim lifestyles.
The company successfully completed its first round of fundraising, netting $1,000,000 in seed capital from investors. Most of this initial money is being used to cover legal, filming, marketing and licensing fees. With a pledge of financial support from Amanat, the company's leading investor, the network's next main milestone is securing the 10,000 paying monthly members necessary to garner cable and satellite television support.
Initial projections are to broadcast the channel four to six hours per day. Pending advertising revenue and community support through monthly subscriptions, Bridges TV hopes to evolve into a full-time nationwide cable television channel. Their long-term goal is to gain at least 10% of American Muslim households as monthly subscribers.
So far the response from potential subscribers has been overwhelming. Over 1,000 paying members have signed up in just one month.
"An American Muslim television channel is the greatest need of our times," said Amanat. If American Muslims want to bring this kind of television programming into their home, we need their support as members - the viability of this project depends on American Muslims."
I think that it is a great idea. I think that it is important for people in the US realize that American Muslims are NOT all wild eyed terrorists. If this station helps non-Muslims learn about their Muslim neighbors, it will be very productive.
I think that this station will probably get a higher percentage of non-Muslims than view other niche stations get viewers not of their ethnicity or race.. I think that this is where the curiosity factor comes in. Many people are really interested in learning about Muslims, especially as to how they relate to others in the United States.
I wish them luck!
L.A.-based satellite TV is crucial link for protesters in Ir
L.A.-based satellite TV is crucial link for protesters in Iran
By SANDRA MARQUEZ, Associated Press Writer
Last Updated 11:25 a.m. PDT Friday, June 20, 2003
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Reza Fazeli was a household name when he fled Iran in 1979, abandoning a career as an actor and film director.
He's back in front of the camera today, but in a much different role - news anchor for one of four Los Angeles Iranian television studios that beams satellite broadcasts every day into Iranian living rooms.
When rumors surfaced of an explosion at Tehran University during recent student protests in the capital, Fazeli asked his listeners for information. Within minutes, the phone lines were lit up and faxes were pouring in from Iran, where it was 2 a.m.
"When I get faxes back, I know they are hearing me," said Fazeli, 68.
The student uprisings have given a focus for the U.S.-based satellite broadcasters, which the Iranian government has condemned for stoking unrest.
To many protesters, the satellite broadcasts are a lifeline to the outside world from a country in which the media are tightly controlled.
Despite an official ban on satellite dishes, some estimates claim about 35 percent of the Iranian population has access to one. Others claim the figure is much lower and only the rich can afford them. Still, the information spreads on tapes and in phone calls.
"With satellite TV channels, we can see what is happening and we can tell other friends," said one caller to Fazeli's show from Iran who identified himself as Reza, a 28-year-old student of English literature.
Reza, who asked that his last name not be published for fear of retaliation, said the satellite broadcasts gave him courage and made him feel part of a larger movement.
"They are the most important things," he said. "Here, we have no real news."
But some also see dangers in the broadcasts. Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, an Iranian journalist who was jailed a few years ago, said the California-based stations fill a void but often merely advance the "rumor mill."
"In the absence of active national media, foreign-based media become more powerful," he said. "But because these TV stations have no representatives on the ground here, they are incapable of understanding and gauging the real situation in the country."
The student unrest in Tehran has deep support from the estimated one million Iranian exiles who live in the United States. Los Angeles, dubbed Tehrangeles by some exiles, is home to the world's largest Iranian emigre community.
Fazeli's Azadi Television - one of four satellite television stations and two radio stations that transmit directly from here into Iran each day - is a gleaming new station that opened six months ago with an initial $600,000 investment. The U.S. government says the stations are independent; it gets its message out to Iran through its own Farsi-language station, Radio Farda.
The recent wave of student protests against Iran's hard-line, anti-American clerics, the largest in months, have led to sometimes violent clashes between students and pro-government militia.
The demonstrations show discontent with President Mohammad Khatami's failure to deliver promised political and social reforms, said Reza Pahlavi, heir to Iran's dethroned monarchy. His father, the late shah of Iran, was overthrown in 1979 during the country's Islamic revolution.
Pahlavi, 42, is now heard regularly on the U.S.-based broadcasts. He praised the technology that is allowing millions of Iranians to see what is happening in their country and know that the rest of the world is watching.
"Thank God for technology. Thank God for satellite television. Thank God for the Internet. Thank God for cell phones," Pahlavi told The Associated Press from his base in Falls Church, Va.
A vocal proponent of self-determination for the Iranian people, he is emerging as an unlikely symbol of democracy.
"The average man on the street understands today that a prerequisite to democracy is secularization, that is a separation of religion from government," Pahlavi said.
In Tehran, though, many demonstrators say they aren't in the streets to support the heir to the Peacock Throne.
"Our slogan is 'no to the leader (Ayatollah Khamenei), no to the shah.' Our movement is a peoples' movement, not an American movement," said one protester.
Yet sentiment cuts the other way, as well.
"Their news is good and honest. They are accurate; not the lies we get from the media here," an elderly man in Tabriz said of the U.S.-based broadcasts. He asked not to be named.
Half a world away, on Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles, where Iranian exiles mingle at bakeries, bookstores and music stores that cater to the tastes and sounds of their homeland, the country's recent unrest has been a topic of animated discussion.
"If they ask me, 'Are you willing to take one week of vacation and join them (the student protesters), probably I would say no," said Nima Amini, 32, a commuter airline pilot who left Iran when he was 19.
He said the student movement "is very pure" but questioned the motives of wealthy exiles who he believes will only try to reclaim their social standing if reform succeeds in Iran.
But he also acknowledged that the U.S. broadcasts have been crucial to sustaining the calls for change in his homeland.
"It also gives them some hope, that people on the other side of the ocean have heard them and they care," Amini said. "At the end of the night, they can go home and see themselves on the satellite. This is the positive side."
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