TEHRAN – The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) has launched two 24-hour TV channels, which will show programs on health and films.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, IRIB Managing Director Ezzatollah Zarghami, and a group of cultural officials attended a ceremony in Tehran held to officially launch the Tamasha and Salamat channels on Saturday morning.
Tamasha has dedicated to showing Iranian and foreign movies and series, and Salamat will show programs on health.
Tamasha has been launched to struggle against the foreign satellite channels targeting Iranian viewers, Zarghami said during the ceremony.
“According to research, Iranian viewers refer to the foreign satellite channels mostly to watch movies TV series… and they do not show much regard for the political programs and news services of the channels,” he added.
Zarghami lamented about the lack of necessary budget to produce new movies and series and said that a number of film production projects have been stopped due financial problems.
“Today, we cover part of the expenses by the revenues earned from the commercials,” he stated and asked Ahmadinejad to provide part of the budget for production of the projects.
“Salamat was launched to raise public knowledge of health,” he said.
“Sure, the generation that will use the information the channel gives will be healthier than the previous generations,” he added.
Zarghami said that the IRIB plans to soon launch iFilm channel for English-speaking people.
iFilm is an Arabic network based in Iran that was launched in August 2010 to show Iranian films and serials to the Arab world.
MMS/YAW
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