Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has announced plans to launch a 24-hour Arabic-language news channel in partnership with Rupert Murdoch's Fox network.

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, former editor in chief of Alwatan newspaper and a media adviser to Prince Turki Al-Faisal at Saudi embassies in London and Washington D.C., will head the station.

Khashoggi is a controversial choice because he has clashed with Saudi authorities over religious police and women's rights and resigned from his newspaper position earlier this year over an editorial questioning Salafism, a form of Islam at the heart of the conservative state.

Prince Alwaleed's new channel will compete for Arab viewers with well-established networks Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera. He did not name the channel, which will build a network of Arab correspondents.

"We no longer have a void in the Arab world as it is now heavily occupied," Alwaleed acknowledged in the statement.

'An alternative for viewers'

"Therefore the new news channel is going to become an addition and an alternative for viewers. Our personal aim is to achieve this."

The new channel "will focus on development in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world on the political, economic and social fronts," he added.

News Corp. and Prince Alwaleed's Rotana already have a relationship with News Corp. buying a 9.09 per cent stake in Rotana for $70 million US earlier this year. Alwaleed already held seven per cent in News.

Fox channels are carried on Rotana's conventional TV platform and Rotana and Fox co-operated last year on a four-year deal for content from the Walt Disney Company.

Rotana also owns radio stations, a magazine, a digital media group and other broadcasting interests. However the new network will not be held by Rotana, but by Kingdom Holding, another of Prince Alwaleed's companies.

No date was given for launch of the channel.