Release: Frost over the World

Al Jazeera English announces “Frost Over The World” programme, with award winning media legend Sir David Frost

12 November 2006 – Al Jazeera English, the 24-hour English-language news and current affairs channel, today announces that award-winning broadcaster, author and producer, Sir David Frost, will present its flagship current affairs show, “Frost over the World”.

Frost over the World will be the flagship current affairs programme on Al Jazeera broadcasting for one hour, at 6pm GMT every Friday from London, starting 17 November. Each programme will cover the world’s top stories. There will be interviews with international leaders and newsmakers, the latest from the stars of arts and entertainment and a four-way global debate with contributors from all over the world.

A broadcasting legend, Sir David has been awarded all the major television awards – The Emmy Award (for “The David Frost Show” – twice); The Royal Television Society Silver Medal and The Richard Dimbleby Award in the UK and, internationally, the Golden Rose of Montreux. He has been awarded BAFTA’s highest honour the BAFTA Fellowship and was knighted by The Queen in the New Year’s Honours List of January 1993. He has also been honoured by the Museum of Moving Image in New York in 1998 and by the Museum of Broadcasting in New York in 1999.

Director of News & Programming at Al Jazeera English, Steve Clark said “Frost over the World is an amazing offering. Sir David’s experience and formidable style complement and enhance our broad range of programmes broadcast around the world. Having someone as recognised and synonymous with ground-breaking programming working with Al Jazeera is an obvious and fortuitous partnership.”

Speaking of the programme Sir David said “People, blithely, talk all the time about “new challenges,” but this really is a huge new challenge – broadcasting to a worldwide audience. I can’t wait to get going. Frost over the world will be a new show for a new channel for the new century”.

Landmark interviews have always been a feature of Sir David’s career. Among the many world figures that he has interviewed are the six most recent British Prime Ministers (Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair), HRH the Prince of Wales, HRH the Duke of York, HRH the Princess Royal, the Duchess of York in the United Kingdom; the seven most recent Presidents of the United States. His Nixon interviews achieved “the largest audience for a news interview in history” (New York Times).

Other notable interviews include Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, Robert F Kennedy, Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney in North America; John Howard, Robert Hawke, Malcom Fraser and Gough Whitlam in Australia; Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto and President Musharraf in Asia; King Hussein, Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, Menachem Begin, Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu in the Middle East. Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and F.W. de Klerk in South Africa, and President Putin in Russia. Outisde the field of world affairs, the roster is equally impressive – from Orson Welles, Tennessee Williams, Noel Coward and Peter Ustinov, to Arthur Rubinstein, Woody Allen, Muhammad Ali and the Beatles.

Sir David’s career has been so diverse that he has been described as a “one man conglomerate”. Host and co-creator of “That Was the Week That Was”, producer of countless television programmes from A Gift of Song: The Music for UNICEF Concert to the Spectacular World of Guinness Records; author of 15 books; producer of eight films; publisher, lecturer, impresario and the joint founder of London Weekend television and TV-am. Not to mention the fact that he is perhaps the best known television interviewer in the World.

As a commissioning house Al Jazeera English language channel’s programmes will include material gathered from freelancers and independent companies all across the globe through a unique commissioning site: www.ajicommissioning.net

About Al Jazeera English

Al Jazeera English is the world’s first English language news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East.  Broadcasting from within the Middle East, looking outwards, Al Jazeera English will set the news agenda and act as a bridge between cultures.
 
With unique access as the channel of reference for Middle East events, and broadcast centres strategically placed around the world in Doha, Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington DC, Al Jazeera English will balance the information flow from South to North, providing accurate, impartial and objective news for a global audience from a grass roots level, giving voice to different perspectives from under-reported regions around the world.
 
Al Jazeera English is building on the ground-breaking heritage of its sister Arab-language channel – Al Jazeera, which was responsible for changing the face of news within the Middle East, now extending that fresh perspective from regional to global.

GET MORE FROM THE AL JAZEERA PRESS OFFICE

Al Jazeera’s Press Office is open for enquiries from members of the press and media. Journalists can contact us at the following address:

The Press Office, Al Jazeera, PO Box 23127, Doha, Qatar
e-mail: press.int@aljazeera.net – Tel: +974 489 2320/1, +44 207 201 2819 or +1 212 486 7070

The Al Jazeera Press Office Inbox is regularly checked during office hours and inquiries will be answered as quickly as possible