Private TV station launched in Kuwait

A Kuwaiti publisher launched the country's first privately owned television station on Friday, ending decades of government monopoly of broadcast news media.

Alrai TV, which broadcasts by satellite, features news, dramas and movies as well as religious programmes. Its name translates as "Opinion TV."

"On this station, we are pioneers of freedom ... and openness," Jasem Boudai, the station's main owner, said in an editorial Friday in the newspaper Al Rai Al Amm, which he also owns.

He promised objective reporting and talk shows void of "sensationalism."

The government of this state has owned and run television stations for more than four decades. The information ministry has four channels, including a satellite station, an English-language station and a sports station.

But state television is widely seen as rigid and unable to compete with other Arab channels, which offer more news and less-censored entertainment programmes. The spread of satellite television across the Middle East has increased competition.

In the editorial, Boudai labelled his station "a Kuwaiti, Gulf and Arab forum."

Kuwait, a constitutional democracy, boasts the freest printed press in the Gulf, but the government has the right to close down newspapers it deems have endangered national unity or relations with friendly nations.