A new cable television channel that claims to be the first US Muslim lifestyle network in English debuts next week, bringing to fruition an idea born in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
Bridges TV founder and chief executive Muzzammil Hassan, who moved to the United States from Pakistan in 1979, says his wife came up with the idea in December 2001 while listening to the radio on a road trip.
“Some derogatory comments were being made about Muslims that offended her,” Mr Hassan said.
“She was seven months’ pregnant and she thought she didn’t want her kids growing up in this environment.”
A former banker and marketing executive, Mr Hassan drew up a business plan and raised backing from US investors for the channel, which he says will launch with 50,000 cable and satellite TV subscribers.
He has signed a deal with Comcast, the largest US cable operator, to make it available nationwide.
Mr Hassan says the Buffalo, New York-based channel is focused on lifestyle and entertainment and programs will include Muslim cartoons, educational shows and animated Koran stories.
It will also offer daily news and current-events programs and aims to offer more objectivity than its competitors.
“Our target audience has told us some of the foreign channels are pretty one-sided and some of the domestic channels are pretty one-sided the other way,” he said.
The network will differ from popular Arabic satellite channels like Al Jazeera in that it is focused on life in America, in English and backed by US money.
Mr Hassan hopes Bridges TV will be watched by non-Muslims as well, but he says the channel’s target audience of 8 million Americans of Muslim heritage is an affluent and well-educated group that should be attractive to advertisers.
Annual household income is above average at $US54,000 compared to $US43,000 and numbers are rising at 6.2 per cent a year compared to overall US population growth of 0.9 per cent, according to Bridges TV’s demographic studies.
Mr Hassan says the network’s name was chosen to emphasise its purpose of building bridges between American Muslims and other Americans.
- Reuters