{"id":245,"date":"2014-08-27T08:55:31","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T08:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2014\/08\/27\/new-middle-east-studio-sharing-the-good-news-of-freedom\/"},"modified":"2014-08-27T08:55:31","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T08:55:31","slug":"new-middle-east-studio-sharing-the-good-news-of-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/new-middle-east-studio-sharing-the-good-news-of-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"New Middle East Studio: Sharing the Good News of Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"

22 June 2011 Silver Spring, USA <\/strong><\/span>[Shelley Nolan Freesland,\u00a0ted<\/i>NEWS]\u00a0This July, Adventist World Radio will begin broadcasting new shortwave programs in Arabic for four hours daily \u2013\u00a0morning and evening \u2013 to listeners countries such as Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Arabic is spoken by more than 230 million people in the world. It is a high?priority language for AWR, and there have\u00a0been Arabic broadcasts in existence since AWR was established in 1971. But there are a large number of dialects within\u00a0the major forms of Arabic.
\u201cThis new programming in \u2018Classical Arabic\u2019 represents a new approach for AWR, which we believe will more
effectively serve Arabic listeners in diverse countries,\u201d says AWR senior vice president Greg Scott. The new programs are\u00a0being produced at a studio that was built this year in the Middle East; in addition to shortwave radio, they will also be\u00a0available worldwide as podcasts, through awr.org and iTunes.<\/p>\n

A Diverse Language<\/strong>
Years ago, AWR did have programs in Classical Arabic, which were produced at the Seventh?day Adventist Church\u2019s\u00a0media center in Cyprus. But production ceased when the center was closed approximately eight years ago.<\/p>\n

For the past 40 years, AWR has had ongoing Arabic programs in a version of the language that is suitable for listeners\u00a0in North Africa, a region known as the Maghreb. These are currently produced through a \u201cvirtual team\u201d that is\u00a0coordinated at a studio in France. These programs include segments that are contributed by a number of Arabic producers\u00a0working in a variety of countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe this new Classical Arabic production is much more suitable for listeners in these countries, as the
language and culture of this territory are more closely reflected,\u201d says AWR Europe region director Tihomir Zestic, who\u00a0also oversees AWR\u2019s ministry in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe winds of change and freedom are blowing in this area,\u201d states Amir Ghali, director of the new studio. \u201cPeople\u00a0want to be liberated. I\u2019m sure there\u2019s a reason that God has made it possible for us to set up this studio while the entire\u00a0Middle East is pushing for freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

AWR\u2019s podcast statistics also show evidence of how important Arabic programs are. At last count, the Arabic podcast\u00a0is attracting the most subscribers of any AWR language, with the highest number of new subscribers per month. The\u00a0majority of podcast listeners are downloading from Saudi Arabia. \u201cIt thrills us to think there is such a good job being done\u00a0in this part of the world, but we know there is much more yet to do,\u201d Zestic says.<\/p>\n

A New Voice of Hope<\/strong>
Earlier this year, AWR global resource engineer Daryl Gungadoo and Europe Region program director Yves Senty\u00a0traveled from their office in England to the Middle East, to set up the studio and conduct training for the local staff and\u00a0volunteers. The trainees, who ranged in age from 19 to 23, were also successful in braving their intensive training\u00a0schedule. They covered topics from microphone recording patterns and editing software to writing for radio, conducting\u00a0interviews, and handling listener responses. Senty says, \u201cIt was a real pleasure to work with such an enthusiastic team.\u00a0They, along with the studio director, were very excited at the concept of podcasting, especially after seeing the statistics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cProduction of these programs in Classical Arabic from our new studio constitutes a huge step forward in reaching all\u00a0of the countries of the Middle East where Arabic is the primary language,\u201d Chow says. \u201cPeople in this part of the world are\u00a0experiencing much difficulty during these times, and many are seeking answers. The programs from Adventist World\u00a0Radio bring a true message of hope from a loving and compassionate God. We are extremely excited about this new\u00a0initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghali says, \u201cThank you, AWR, for making this dream come true, where we can share our good news of freedom in\u00a0Jesus to millions of Arabic?speaking people around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adventist World Radio is the mission radio arm of the Seventh?day Adventist Church. It broadcasts the Adventist hope\u00a0in Christ to the hardest?to?reach people groups of the world in their own languages, through shortwave, AM\/FM radio,\u00a0podcasts, and on?demand at awr.org<\/a>.
__________________<\/em><\/p>\n

photos (selected names withheld)\u00a0
1) AWR Europe region program director Yves Senty (center) works on recording and interviewing skills with young trainees at AWR’s new Middle East studio.
2) AWR global resource engineer Daryl Gungadoo (second from right) demonstrates the capabilities of
different microphones to trainees at AWR\u2019s new Middle East studio<\/span>. [ted<\/em>NEWS]
\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Miroslav Pujic, director; Deana Stojkovic, editor
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail:\u00a0tednews@ted-adventist.org
Website: www.ted-adventist.org<\/p>\n

ted<\/em>NEWS is an information bulletin issued by the\u00a0communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the\u00a0Trans-European Division.\u00a0
You are free to re-print any portion of the bulletin\u00a0without need for\u00a0special permission. However, we kindly request that you\u00a0identify\u00a0ted<\/em>NEWS\u00a0whenever you publish these materials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

22 June 2011 Silver Spring, USA <\/strong><\/span>[Shelley Nolan Freesland,\u00a0ted<\/i>NEWS]\u00a0This July, Adventist World Radio will begin broadcasting new shortwave programs in Arabic for four hours daily \u2013\u00a0morning and evening \u2013 to listeners countries such as Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Arabic is spoken by more than 230 million people in the world. It is a high?priority language for AWR, and there have\u00a0been Arabic broadcasts in existence since AWR was established in 1971. But there are a large number of dialects within\u00a0the major forms of Arabic.
\u201cThis new programming in \u2018Classical Arabic\u2019 represents a new approach for AWR, which we believe will more
effectively serve Arabic listeners in diverse countries,\u201d says AWR senior vice president Greg Scott. The new programs are\u00a0being produced at a studio that was built this year in the Middle East; in addition to shortwave radio, they will also be\u00a0available worldwide as podcasts, through awr.org and iTunes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1578],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-religious-liberty-public-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}