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Israeli TV ready for prime time in U.S.
LESLIE KATZ
Jewish Bulletin of Northern California
SAN FRANCISCO - Israel junkies will soon have another fix. Starting in October, a new satellite channel is expected to beam 24 hours a day of Israeli programming to North American households.
Viewers will be able to flick on their televisions and soak up Israeli news, sports, children's programming, documentaries, talk shows and live coverage of special events - everything Israelis see, and then some.
"It's a whole package of the best Israeli television can offer," said Shlomo Wolfhart, chief executive officer of the Israel Channel, the Kfar Saba-based company bringing the programming to North America. He and Gadi Golan, whose Israeli property development and investment company Corex Ltd. is backing the project, visited the San Francisco area earlier this month to meet with potential investors and promote the upcoming service.
A number of Jewish-oriented program providers currently operate in the United States, offering limited programming. Air time ranges from one to three hours weekly. Wolfhart and Golan said surveys show a remarkably high level of interest in the idea of round-the-clock Israeli broadcasting in the U.S.
"We haven't met one Israeli or one person who has an interest in Israel and Zionism who doesn't have an interest" in the burgeoning project, Golan said.
North America is home to approximately 2.5 million Jewish households, about 600,000 of which are believed to be strongly concerned about Israeli and Jewish affairs. To start, the new venture is primarily targeting the 190,000 households with at least one Israeli.
Initially, 90 percent of the programming will be in Hebrew, with English subtitles. Wolfhart said his company has exclusive rights to programming with all major broadcasters in Israel, including Channel One and the Educational Channel. But he and Golan also envision a day when original programming generated on this side of the globe will address issues of concern to American Jews, maybe even including Hebrew-language instruction.
"The idea is to take a large sum of the profits and put them back into the community to produce original shows that deal with Jewish matters in the United States," said Wolfhart.
To receive the programming, North American viewers will need to purchase a home satellite dish and an encoder, a combination that will allow them to receive a wide array of additional channels offered by a direct broadcast satellite company with which the Israel Channel ultimately signs a contract. A monthly subscription fee of $20 to $25 also will be required. The programming package "will be as far away as your telephone," said Golan, whose company has invested $300,000 in the project so far and plans to invest another $200,000. He projects the total project cost to be $5.5 million.
Advertising will help defray the cost. "We will air about four minutes of advertising an hour ... between the shows," Wolfhart said.
To start off, the programming will run in five-hour segments repeated three times a day, with shows airing just hours after their broadcast in Israel.
Information is not yet available on when such programs would be accessible in the Phoenix area.
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