Al Jazeera Arabic

Al Jazeera Arabic is the Arabic-language service of the Doha-based Al Jazeera network. It provides news, current affairs and political debate from across the Arab world and beyond, with live reports from correspondents, interviews with leaders and analysts, discussion programmes, documentaries and sport. The channel started in 1996 and became one of the most influential media outlets in the Middle East, changing the landscape of Arabic-language broadcasting with its independent style of presenting and its willingness to host heated debate.

The network is funded by the government of Qatar, which has been a subject of discussion about editorial independence, and listeners who follow regional politics may find it useful to compare its coverage with that of other outlets. The programming is entirely in Arabic and largely based on speech, so it works well for listeners who want to follow events in audio form, and for students of Modern Standard Arabic who want to practise comprehension with clear news delivery. The stream is a live feed delivered in AAC at 32 kbps, a very low bitrate that keeps data use minimal, which suits weaker connections. It plays in your browser on RadioKite, and you can add it to your favourites.