LONDON (AFP) - The BBC is to launch a new Persian-language television channel for Iran with British government funding, the London-based public service broadcaster announced Tuesday.

The free-to-air news and information channel is expected to launch in early 2008 and cost 15 million pounds (22 million euros, 28 million dollars) a year to operate.

It will be available via satellite or cable and is designed to complement the existing BBC World Service Persian radio and online services. BBC World Service is funded by a grant from Britain's Foreign Office.

"The BBC's Persian radio and online services are well respected by Iranians, especially by opinion-formers," said World Service director Nigel Chapman.

"In Iran we are regarded as the most trusted and objective of all international broadcasters... But television is increasingly dominating the way that millions of Iranian people receive their news.

"Like all BBC services, the new television service will be editorially independent of the UK government."

The BBC announced in October last year that it was to relaunch an Arabic language television station in late 2007, putting itself in direct competition with established pan-Arab satellite broadcasters like Al-Jazeera.

But BBC Arabic Television came at a price with job losses in foreign-language BBC World Service radio services aimed mainly at former communist countries.