OPINION: Stuart Elliott in America.

When Americans, particularly those who make a living in showbusiness or marketing, wonder if something will go over big, they ask: 'Will it play in Peoria?'. The question now being asked is:'Will it be boffo in Baghdad?'

In a first for the US media, the major television news operations are providing the federal government with footage from their flagship nightly shows to be broadcast abroad, in this instance as part of the effort to help rebuild Iraq after the war. The programme is being beamed from Air Force planes under the aegis of the United States Information Agency, with the network newscasts subtitled in Arabic.

Taking part are ABC, CBS, Fox News, NBC and PBS, the public broadcasting network. CNN demurred, citing qualms about compromising its independence, and the BBC, asked to participate, also declined.

The goal is 'to be an example for a free press in an American tradition', Norman Pattiz, the media mogul serving as the liaison between the networks' news divisions and the White House, told The New York Times. 'The only way now that they have to understand America is through their indigenous media,' Pattiz said, referring to the Iraqis. 'And the view that what they get is not what we think is the fair and accurate view.'

The networks that agreed to pitch in - it's an 'appropriately patriotic gesture', Andrew Heyward, the president of CBS News, told the Times - did so on the basis that the programmes would be presented uncut and unedited. But there is something missing: commercials.

Yes, the first glimpse Iraq is getting of the vaunted American media is minus advertising. 'But that's the best ...