The BBC Arabic television news channel began broadcasting at 10am GMT today.

Richard Sambrook, the corporation's director of global news, took the opportunity to deny the channel aimed to out-do homegrown Arab channels.

"We won't, as some have suggested, be seeking to get more viewers than broadcasters like al-Jazeera or Al Arabiya," he wrote on the BBC editors' blog. "As an international broadcaster that is unlikely."

The channel will compete with its international content and more neutral perspective, he added.

"We believe we can be distinctive for Arab audiences offering an international, not just Arab, perspective on events and an objective approach to issues.

"It will have the same standards and values as any other BBC service, reporting on the rest of the world as well as the region."

He said the BBC wanted a channel in "one of the most important regions of the world" where "events... affect all of us in some way, from terrorism and war, to oil prices and trade".

"It is natural therefore that the World Service should seek to reach as many people as possible with its broadcasts - and today that means being on TV which is now the most used medium for news and information," said Sambrook. However, he denied it would be "Western propaganda" as some, he said, had suggested.