BBC Afrique to broadcast New Year’s Eve special

The BBC’s French for Africa service, BBC Afrique, will join forces this evening with re-broadcasting partners in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, DR Congo and Togo to mount a major live programme, bringing together voices from key political, social and cultural figures and engaging audiences across Africa in discussions and debate.

Broadcast from BBC Afrique’s newly launched bureau in Dakar, Senegal, from 2200 UTC on Friday 31 December to 0100 UTC on Saturday 1 January, the major live radio production, Le Tour d’Afrique des réveillons (Africa Tour of New Year Celebrations) will bring performances by and interviews with some of the biggest names in showbiz including Akon from Senegal, Patience Dabany from Gabon, Aicha Kone from Cote d’Ivoire, Sekouba Bambino and Bembeya Jazz from Guinea. The BBC Afrique programme will feature highlights from traditional speeches by heads of African states including Alpha Condé, Guinea’s new democratically elected president.

Head of Dakar Bureau, BBC Afrique, Ibrahima Diane, says: “Audiences will be at the heart of this 180-minute programme, discussing the past year and sharing their expectations of 2011. This has also been a great opportunity to work closely with leading journalists from our partner radio stations across the region as they will be linking with us throughout the programme. We are looking forward to a very special broadcasting event that will culminate 2010 and usher in 2011.”

Le Tour d’Afrique des réveillons is produced with the participation of the BBC’s re-broadcasting partner stations including Radio Raga in DR Congo, Horizon and Pulsar in Burkina Faso, Radio Star in Cameroon and Radio Lome in Togo. It will feature links from Abidjan, Bujumbura, Conakry, Cotonou, Dakar, Johannesburg, Kigali, Kinshasa, Libreville, Lome, London, Ouagadougou, Paris and Younde. It will be broadcast on FM, shortwave, via CanalSat Horizons and Hotbird satellite.

(Source: BBC World Service Publicity)

Andy Sennitt adds: Unfortunately I cannot find any details of shortwave frequencies on the BBC Afrique website, or in HFCC, or elsewhere on the Internet. BBC Afrique doesn’t normally broadcast on shortwave at this time. The BBC Afrique Twitter feed doesn’t have them either. I even listened to the on-demand audio files of this morning’s BBC Afrique programmes, and although there was a brief mention of the special programme, details of how to tune in were not given. If anyone knows the details, please post a comment and I will add them to the story.