Posted on 01/02/2013 3:08:13 PM PST by autumnraine
Al Jazeera is putting the final touches on a deal to take over Current TV, the low-rated cable channel that was founded by Al Gore and his business partners seven years ago.
If the deal is completed, Current will provide the pan-Arab news giant with something it has sought for years: a pathway into American living rooms. Current is available in about 60 million of the 100 million homes in the United States with cable or satellite service.
Rather than simply use Current to distribute its English-language channel, called Al Jazeera English and based in Doha, Qatar, Al Jazeera will create a new channel based in New York, according to people with knowledge of the deal negotiations. The channel may be called Al Jazeera America. Roughly 60 percent of the programming will be produced in the United States, while the remaining 40 percent will come from Al Jazeera English.
Al Jazeera may absorb some Current TV staff members, according to the people, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. But Currents schedule of shows will most likely be dissolved in the spring.
The plan will bring Al Jazeera, which is financed by the government of Qatar, into closer competition with CNN and other news channels in the United States.
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They really want to be able to compete for American viewers, and they have to find some way to get on, said Philip Seib, the director of the center on public diplomacy at the University of Southern California and the author of The Al Jazeera Effect.
(Excerpt) Read more at mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com ...
“Poi-fect!”
I’m glad someone more rational is taking over.
They won’t even have to change producers, staff or talent.
....so Global Warming is a plot to destroy Islam?
So it goes from irrelevancy to insanity.
Maybe Al Jazeera will bring in some set designers that can build something better looking than what I used to see on Community Access Cable programs in the late 1980s.
AJ will likely use this create Al Jazeera America. If it’s anything like Al Jazeera English, I think it will do fairly well.
They aren’t.
“Al Jazeera may absorb some Current TV staff members, according to the people, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “
we know they’d never allo a conservative to buy a channel, the cable-sat systems would drop it
Al Gorezeera
Their English language coverage is a bit to the right of CNN (except when discussing anything about Israel, of course).
From one group of inbred America-haters to another.
It will probably be more conservative under Al Jezeera
Al Gore is a vapid doooosh.
'Finally, a network that will take me!
FMCDH(BITS)
The Al-Gore-Zero Network.
What better vehicle to unleash cells already here than coded messages
on Current TV to terrorist ready to strike.
What better vehicle to hide behind when u are caught taking video or
pictures of potential targets. Hide behind freedom of the press.
Great idea for terrorist, bad idea for Americans.
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