DOHA: Al Jazeera Children's Channel (JCC) and Japanese public broadcaster NHK yesterday signed an agreement to strengthen their collaboration.
The new co-production agreement to strengthen their collaboration on major offerings over the coming five years was signed at JCC's premises in the Education City - Qatar.
The long-term partners, NHK and JCC, will extend their joint efforts to develop and produce unique educational programmes in the fields of science, discovery, technology, environment, and education.
Hidemi Hyuga, NHK's Executive Managing Director of Broadcasting, said: "NHK is very happy to partner with JCC. From the relationship that the NHK group has enjoyed with JCC over the years, we know that we share the same vision of contributing to the public good and striving for educational and cultural advancement. We look forward to working on various cutting-edge projects together."
Mahmoud Bouneb, Executive General Manager of Al Jazeera Children's Channel, said: "This partnership with the NHK group comes in line with our mandate and ambitions to bring the best and most progressive content to our audience and contribute in shaping their way of life, and the way they view each component in their surroundings. We aim at producing cutting-edge programming that is valuable for teachers and students alike. We are pleased to team up again with a credible entity with which we share many of our values and aspirations."
The two broadcasters have already enjoyed success with Discover Science, which was a co-production with NHK affiliate NHK Educational Corporation (NED). Discover Science is a new kind of science entertainment series that demonstrates scientific principles by showing them in action through mega-experiments.
Creative visualisation paired with NHK's latest shooting techniques yielded fascinating ways to understand scientific phenomena. Under the new agreement, NHK, JCC, and NED will discuss a sequel series.
Deep-Sea discoveries; Human Body in Extreme situation; Our Cells... all are remarkable series of titles for which JCC will start by taking part in the 'Legends of the Deep', a global production underway between NHK/NHK Enterprises and Discovery Science Channel scheduled to air in 2012.
The project's goals are to film the elusive giant squid in its natural habitat for the first time and to shed light on other exotic animals inhabiting the unexplored ocean depths.
The collaboration will be extended to other projects under progress such as the 'Cosmic Shore' with focus on the boundary zone between Earth's upper atmosphere and space - an area that has long been elusive and difficult to capture on camera.
© The Peninsula 2011
