Posted on 06/15/2013 4:44:18 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s been years since the Cable Show served as the year’s hottest marketplace for new networks looking to cut distribution deals with operators. But don’t tell that to the folks at Al Jazeera America (AJA). The news channel backed by the government of Qatar plans to launch late August following its $500M acquisition of Al Gore’s Current TV. And it was the most prominent new programmer at this week’s annual confab looking to establish itself in cable’s mainstream. “We’re having encouraging meetings” with distributors including Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, and Cox, Al Jazeera Media Network’s international operations executive director Ehab Al Shihabi tells me. He could use some deals: At this point AJA should reach about 49M pay TV homes at launch, mostly subscribers with Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network, AT&T U-verse, and Verizon FiOS. But national advertisers typically steer clear of channels with less than about 80M. That may not be a big problem initially: AJA says it expects to have half the commercial load of its rivals. Meanwhile AJA picked up Current’s deals with cable operators which had them paying about 12 cents per subscriber per month according to SNL Kagan. But the channel’s ”No. 1 priority is not the bottom line,” says Lisa Fletcher, a former ABC investigative reporter who hosts Al Jazeera English’s citizen journalism show The Stream. “I really believe this is a philosophical thing for them, to be the voice of the voiceless.”
Although AJA still doesn’t have a president, Al Shihabi says that operators no longer wonder whether it can provide credible, independent journalism. “The biggest question is, ‘how can you compete in a landscape that’s so saturated’” with news channels, he says. He hopes to quell that concern by pointing to AJA’s ambitious plan to hire 800 staffers, including seasoned pros such as former CNN business correspondent Ali Velshi, and open 12 domestic bureaus. The company also will launch AJA with a major marketing campaign promoting it across national and local TV, social media, print, radio, and out of home. Al Shihabi says AJA will mostly focus on hard news. Even so, “we will cover celebrities and how they’re attached to Main Street. They are doing a lot for their communities and that has not been highlighted.”
Well why not, we’re moving terrorists in as fast as we can.
Just the other day it was reported we were moving 1 million Syrians here.
They deserve access to an Anti-American channel 24/7/365..., don’t they? /s
the voice of people who don’t exist is what they mean, because it will be agitprop.
You mean the Copts?
I consider Al Jazeera to be as legitimate a news source as much of what passes for mainstream American journalism these days.
Sadly, point well taken. Pravda... who could have guessed?
The Al Jihadi news network would probably do better than PMSNBC ... watch the ratings when it starts up. I am willing to bet that PMSNBC will still be last in the cable news ratings.
We're on to you (well, at least some of us are).
Concerned for the welfare of the voiceless, are you? What about the voice of that 3 year old girl being sold by her father to some octogenarian as a sex toy, what about giving a sh!t about the poor 11 year old girl stoned to death because she was warned against talking to boys? What about my American brothers and sisters, you, the country that sponsors Al Jazeera, you, killed through your terrorist organization; you speak for them, their families?
What about that foreign worker in Jeddah you torture, rape, physically abuse daily, nightly, 24 hours around the clock, withhold the salary of to be paid right before her work visa expires and then send her off on home without a penny of her hard-worked money? Why don't you speak for them, take up their banner, be the voice of the helpless,abused, voiceless victims, you repulsive, 7th Century mindset, illiterate, child abusing bunch of towel-headed, sand monkies? ,p>Huh? Why not? Because you're a bunch of phony, fraudster, Taqiyah-peddlers who don't give a damn about anyone certainly not kafirs,like the American infidel you fantasize of killing, blowing up everyone of us.
Hey Al Jazeera, Get The FOCK ON OUT OF HERE!
Actually I know they are bias against Israel
I am so geek up on this I would get Al Jazeera America on Current TV old spot on Channel 192 on Verzion FIOS
I developed craze during Arab spring 2011
They are only internationl news wire that cover everything
voiceless?
don’t many cable systems offer Bridges TV, the Muslim channel started by a guy who chopped off his wife’s head??
Yeah I have hear of that channel Verzion Fios carry it for while they drop it lack of ratings
I think controvsary that owner went OJ on his wife
If you go to Al Jazeera live stream it like arabic version of BBC world news that all
They still give me Commie Chinese TV 4 (CCTV4) propaganda channel too
I doubt it will get on Time Warner because they killed off Current as soon as they were sold. TWC has issues with Al Jazeera. Time Warner needs to put One America News and The Blaze instead.
OH Yeah I do get that channel also
AH I hearing a story one of Deadline Hollywood a months ago that Time Warner may put on Al Jazeera America on
I hear you guys at Time Warner may get One America news I know for a fact my Verzion Fios may get it
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