Manoto TV, sometimes shortened to Manoto, is a free-to-air television channel owned by the Marjan Television Network, and was responsible for airing Series 8 of Robot Wars in Iran and other Persian-speaking countries.
History[]
Launched in October 2010, the channel was initially called Manoto 1, with a sister channel launched alongside it called Manoto 2. However, the latter closed a year later, and the primary channel rebranded to simply be called Manoto.
The channel airs original shows, as well as their own variations of other shows such as Befarmaeed Sham, an Iranian version of Come Dine With Me.
Despite targeting a Persian audience, the channel, and indeed Marjan Television Network, is based in London.
Robot Wars[]
Manoto TV's unique Robot Wars logo
- "In this exciting program, we see a competition between professional and amateur robot designers. They send their robots to the battlefield like gladiators, and by controlling them remotely, they try to push rival robots out of the way."
- — Manoto TV's description of Robot Wars, roughly translated from Persian to English
Manoto TV began airing Series 8 of Robot Wars in late 2017, a year after it had originally aired on BBC Two. Much like FX Korea's dub of the reboot series, Manoto TV produced a subtly different logo for this version of the show. Persian text wraps around the right-hand side of the central motif, which directly translates to "Robot Wars".
Razer's dubbed statistics board
To accommodate its Persian-speaking audience, much of the English was replaced in the show, dubbing spoken audio and written English on statistics boards and House Robot introductions. Although both Dara Ó Briain and Angela Scanlon's audio pieces were dubbed by Persian-speaking voiceover artists, both presenters were still physically present in each episode.[1]
As with many other dubs, none of the four house robots or competing robots were translated from their original English names. Roboteers were also dubbed when interviewed by Dara and Angela, with none of the original audio layered underneath. Jonathan Pearce's commentary was replaced to suit a Persian-speaking audience, though by a different male voiceover artist.
Following the sixth and final episode of Series 8 airing on Manoto TV, no other episodes of Robot Wars were aired.
Trivia[]
- Despite his commentary being dubbed for a Persian-speaking audience, Jonathan Pearce is still listed in the end credits of each episode, and is even introduced by name prior to the first episode's melees.
- Interestingly, different people dub the introductions to every episode, and sometimes, the original English audio can still be faintly heard. Despite this, those who dubbed presenters, judges and Jonathan Pearce remained consistent throughout.
- Manoto would also pick up ABC's seasons of BattleBots around the same time, with the later seasons airing on Discovery Middle East.
References[]
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