BBC Persian is great stuff / فارسی خیلی خوب است BBC

This is great timing for me. BBC has had a Persian service for quite some time now on radio and the internet but the videos have always been just short clips, but starting today they now have BBC Persian eight hours a day, seven days a week. That also means that the online videos are much longer. I haven't taken a look at them all but this first one I looked at (60 minutes / دقیقه 60) is a full hour long. I wonder if they have a Persian-language version of HardTalk.

It turns out that Iran isn't that happy with the service either:

Gholam Hossein Mohseini Ejehi was quoted by Iran's official IRNA news agency as saying the country would take measures against the channel.

He said: "We don't consider this channel to be appropriate for our security. We will take the necessary measures in this regard."

Last month, an Iranian MP accused the BBC of using the channel to recruit spies.

Mohammad Karim Abedi said the corporation was planning on setting up an intelligence network using the launch of the channel as cover.

A BBC spokesman said its only goal was to report on world events in an impartial and editorially independent manner.

That's always the case though when someone intrudes on what you thought to be your linguistic territory. Taking a look at the comments in the first link you can see that apparently there's a lack of credible news in Persian and that BBC Persian might be able to fill up this void pretty quickly. Launching this new service was definitely a good idea.