Etisalat has announced the launch of the Israel-based network i24NEWS on eLife and Switch TV. The channel will be included in the basic packages of eLife and Switch TV.
i24NEWS is the first channel broadcast from Israel to be broadcast in the United Arab Emirates.
Launched in July 2013 by Altice owner Patrick Drah, i24NEWS operates three channels: Arabic, English and French.
“Thanks to the changes in the region, news teams in the Middle East will be able to cover events from a variety of angles, and at i24NEWS we take pride in being the first to provide this full picture to viewers worldwide, and now in the UAE,” said Frank Melloul, i24NEWS’s founder and CEO. “As we keep developing our content to our loyal audience, we continuously reach new viewers and increase our distribution. We thank Etisalat for a ground-breaking move, which is an expression of the peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.”
Switch TV is Etisalat’s new direct-to-costumer OTT service. Switch TV is available in the UAE, offering a mix of Arabic, Asian and Western TV channels in an on-demand library with around 10,000 hours of content available. It’s powered by Synamedia’s infinite cloud TV platform.