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[Muslimah180]

AMERICAN MUSLIMS TO GET A TV NETWORK OF THEIR OWN
JAY TOKASZ, Buffalo News, 11/26/04
[img]"you can't post links until you reach 50 posts_www.buffalonews(contact admin if its a beneficial link)/editorial/20041126/1037612.asp"]you can't post links until you reach 50 posts_www.buffalonews(contact admin if its a beneficial link)/editorial/20041126/1037612.asp[/url]

One show features a Muslim newspaper reporter named Jinnah who solves
whodunits. A soap opera explores the melodrama of a Muslim father
confronted with his daughter's desire to marry a non-Muslim. "Allah Made Me
Funny" chronicles a Muslim comedy tour.

Islamic television, beamed from Buffalo, is coming to a station near
Muslims across the country and in Canada.

Bridges TV debuts Tuesday, weaving news coverage with music videos,
animated children's shows, classic movies and programs about food, travel
and culture - all with an underlying theme appealing to American Muslims.

The new cable television network is the first in English to be aimed at
this demographic, one of the fastest-growing in the country.

Its founder and chief executive officer, Muzzammil S. Hassan, 40, hopes the
network will help balance negative portrayals of Muslims that have
dominated American media since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"The name "Bridges TV' is to build bridges with mainstream America," he
said. "The very purpose of Bridges is to build bridges of friendship and
understanding."

It will be unlike Al-Jazeera or other controversial networks beamed from
Arab or predominantly Muslim countries, said Hassan, an Orchard Park
resident and former M&T Bank vice president.

"It's more of a cultural, lifestyle and entertainment network. It's not a
religious or political network," he said. "Our focus is life right here in
North America."

Programming will be delivered nationwide via a fiber-optic link from the
studios of WNED-TV in downtown Buffalo to a satellite provider in Staten
Island.

Bridges anticipates 50,000 initial subscribers. It already has carriage
agreements with Comcast Cable Co., the nation's largest cable operator, in
Detroit, home to a large American Muslim population and with Buckeye Cable,
a smaller firm that serves northern Ohio and southern Michigan.

The network also is available by GlobeCast satellite and by broadband
television. It costs $14.99 as a premium channel.

It premieres at noon Tuesday with "Bridges News," an original newscast
anchored by former NBC News correspondent Asad Mahmood.

Bridges TV employs about 20 people. Hassan hired an Emmy award-winning
television producer, Jamilah Fraser, as program director, and Tayie Rehem,
formerly of the CBC Network in Canada, as executive producer.

The nightly news program, the centerpiece of the network, will air at 7:30
p.m. weekdays with "an unbiased view of what's going on in the world from
an Islamic perspective," Fraser said.

Bridges TV is aiming for PBS-style programming to appeal to a variety of
viewers, she said…

Hassan was able to sell investors on key demographics for the nation's
estimated 7 million Muslims.

At 6.2 percent per year, their growth rate, for example, far outpaces that
of the total U.S. population, which is less than 1 percent per year.

American Muslims' average annual household income is $11,000 more than the
overall U.S. average, and more American Muslims have bachelor's degrees and
advanced degrees, according to census data and a 2002 study by Cornell
University. Two-thirds of American Muslims are younger than 40...

FOR MORE INFORMATION, GO TO:
[img]"you can't post links until you reach 50 posts_www.bridgestv(contact admin if its a beneficial link)/"]you can't post links until you reach 50 posts_www.bridgestv(contact admin if its a beneficial link)/[/url]

[Allah's Slave]

now i almost wish i had tv so i could just turn on this channel and let it go to support this kind of new outlook on the airwaves  


AS