The Newsroom

Aljazeera America is shutting down April 30

New York Based channel is closing (January 2016)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
RK
Rkolsen
news channel neighborhood (where CNN, HLN, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News and Wx Channel).

HLN is in that but not AJAM or Bloomberg??? Shocked

HLN was in the SD neighborhood for at least 15 years - I'm not sure where it was beforehand but I imagine CNN used their might to get HLN nearby. Plus I'm the early days HLN offered local times where the cable company or a local affiliate could insert local news.

Edit : I read this article from the WashingtonPost which stated that AJAM was prohibited from posting show clips online by their cable company contracts. I still find that pretty interesting. I seem to remember CurrentTV having clips online and with their purchase they inherited the contracts. I imagine if they could post stuff on their website or YouTube they could have gotten some of their clips traction online perhaps bringing in some viewers at least temporarily.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/al-jazeera-america-news-channel-to-close-up-shop/2016/01/13/aa3ab180-ba1f-11e5-99f3-184bc379b12d_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_aljazeera-250pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Last edited by Rkolsen on 14 January 2016 3:52am - 2 times in total
ST
stuartfanning
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2016/1/13/al-jazeera-america-to-close-down.html
CI
cityprod
news channel neighborhood (where CNN, HLN, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News and Wx Channel).

HLN is in that but not AJAM or Bloomberg??? Shocked


HLN is the former Headline News, that used to do news programmes every 30 minutes. I imagine those who want serious news in the US are well served by BBC World News & the PBS Newshour.
NG
noggin Founding member
Is it clear if AJAM will surrender their carriage contracts, or are they just shuttering the US operation and planning to use their existing carriage deals to carry AJE instead?
GL
globaltraffic24
A sad but inevitable event. I think we all knew AJAM would eventually be closed down. It's clear that Qatar had to make savings and it would be insanity for the cuts to hit AJE or AJA - both now highly successful operations. In reference to the points made about dumbing down of US news, I think that's definitely true but I don't think you can blame the broadcasters. The reality is that the US is a bit of a unique market. The urbanites and educated tend to digest their news in newspapers. magazines and online - more so than other markets around the world. US broadcasters would love to target that group. They are wealthy, tend not to have children and spend money like it's going out of fashion. However, they just don't watch TV very much. Broadcasters haven't driven the audience away. The audience has driven broadcasters away. The next time you watch a low rent, crass news comment show on Fox News or MSNBC, remember it's because the upper middle classes are probably in a downtown coffee shop enjoying the NY Times and flicking through blogs on their ipad!
RK
Rkolsen
Is it clear if AJAM will surrender their carriage contracts, or are they just shuttering the US operation and planning to use their existing carriage deals to carry AJE instead?

It sounded like they were shuttering the operation but will focus on digital content.
NG
noggin Founding member
Is it clear if AJAM will surrender their carriage contracts, or are they just shuttering the US operation and planning to use their existing carriage deals to carry AJE instead?

It sounded like they were shuttering the operation but will focus on digital content.


That doesn't answer my question re: continuing carriage? i.e. Are Al Jazeera pulling out entirely from English language US broadcast distribution, or are they going to just rebroadcast AJE so continuing with a broadcast outlet in English, just closing the US-based AJAM operation that used to opt-out of it?
SC
scottishtv Founding member
Just reading that piece in the New York Times:

Andrew Heyward, a former president of CBS News said, "They came kind of swaggering into the arena, saying we’re going to do higher-end stories and represent people who are under-represented,” [...] “This is not ‘Downton Abbey,’ ” he said.

I'm looking at the whole BBC News v. ITV News friction here in the UK (ie. who can do serious news better) in a whole new light now. It's almost a good 'problem' for us to have.
ED
ExDSStar
Is it clear if AJAM will surrender their carriage contracts, or are they just shuttering the US operation and planning to use their existing carriage deals to carry AJE instead?

It sounded like they were shuttering the operation but will focus on digital content.


That doesn't answer my question re: continuing carriage? i.e. Are Al Jazeera pulling out entirely from English language US broadcast distribution, or are they going to just rebroadcast AJE so continuing with a broadcast outlet in English, just closing the US-based AJAM operation that used to opt-out of it?


I assume they would just go for AJE to replace it, Which the educated USA people would tune in still.
RK
Rkolsen
Is it clear if AJAM will surrender their carriage contracts, or are they just shuttering the US operation and planning to use their existing carriage deals to carry AJE instead?

It sounded like they were shuttering the operation but will focus on digital content.


That doesn't answer my question re: continuing carriage? i.e. Are Al Jazeera pulling out entirely from English language US broadcast distribution, or are they going to just rebroadcast AJE so continuing with a broadcast outlet in English, just closing the US-based AJAM operation that used to opt-out of it?

From what I've read so far it seems like they're completely shutting down. To be honest AJE probably wouldn't do much better either.
WW
WW Update
It sounded like they were shuttering the operation but will focus on digital content.


That doesn't answer my question re: continuing carriage? i.e. Are Al Jazeera pulling out entirely from English language US broadcast distribution, or are they going to just rebroadcast AJE so continuing with a broadcast outlet in English, just closing the US-based AJAM operation that used to opt-out of it?

From what I've read so far it seems like they're completely shutting down. To be honest AJE probably wouldn't do much better either.


Perhaps, but the cost of simply distributing AJE would be minimal by comparison.
MO
Mouseboy33

That doesn't answer my question re: continuing carriage? i.e. Are Al Jazeera pulling out entirely from English language US broadcast distribution, or are they going to just rebroadcast AJE so continuing with a broadcast outlet in English, just closing the US-based AJAM operation that used to opt-out of it?

From what I've read so far it seems like they're completely shutting down. To be honest AJE probably wouldn't do much better either.



Perhaps, but the cost of simply distributing AJE would be minimal by comparison.


AJE will probably not be broadcast in the US as BBC World is. I've read a few articles that OAN is interested in their channel space and the broadcast studios in NY. One America News is another frothing angry conservative opinion "news" channel. It competes in the same sphere as FNC. So its likely that AJ is going to completely pull out of the US and sell off the channel space.

From the Slate.com
Quote:

And yet, Al Jazeera America launched based on the assumption that America's revealed preferences were not, in fact, its preferences. Is it any wonder it failed?

Was there any actual evidence, aside from surveys or focus group data, that suggested somebody might watch Al Jazeera America? During the height of the Arab Spring, Al Jazeera’s English-language website became a go-to source of coverage for many Americans. In 2013, Al Shihabi told Marketplace that 40 percent of Al Jazeera English’s streaming traffic came from the United States. Surely that was a sign that some of those online viewers would tune in to the network, right? Well, no. Web audiences aren't the same as cable TV viewers. They're younger. They often dislike TV, or dislike paying for it anyway. If anything, those streaming figures were a sign that Al Jazeera English had a bright future as a destination for U.S. Internet users. Which is why it makes sense that, as it is shuttering Al Jazeera America, Al Jazeera Media says its going to focus more effort online. That's where its attention should have been all along.


Glen Greenwald writes
Quote:
From the start, employees complained vociferously that network executives were paralyzed by fear, believing they had to avoid all hints of bias and opinion in order to steer clear of what these executives regarded as the lethal stench of the Al Jazeera brand for American audiences . This turned much of the network into a diluted, extra-fearful version of CNN, which itself has suffered from remarkably low ratings for years. AJAM journalists typically blame one AJAM executive in particular, Ehab Al Shihabi, its executive director of international operations. Al Shihabi, whose background is in business and not journalism, was widely regarded as the prime author of the network’s identity problems and obsession with voiceless content.

A 2013 column in the Toronto Star by former Al Jazeera English chief Tony Burman warned that “the Al Jazeera America project has the odor of potential disaster.” Burman cited a New York Times article that began: “While it has a foreign name, the forthcoming Al Jazeera cable channel in the United States wants to be American through and through.” A NYT article from May on the “turmoil” plaguing the network pronounced that “the station has been a nonfactor in news.” Rather than fill a market gap for strong-voiced journalism with a focus on domestic counter-terrorism policy and the Middle East, AJAM opted for the much safer – and ultimately futile – strategy of trying to be an inoffensive, generic cable news network.

AJAM has been losing staggering sums of money from the start. That has become increasingly untenable as the network’s owner and funder, the government of Qatar, is now economically struggling due to low oil prices. The decision was made recently to terminate AJAM, which allows the network to terminate all of its cumbersome distribution contracts with cable companies, and re-launch its successful Al Jazeera English inside the U.S.

While AJAM has struggled with its television programming, its online reporting and digital opinion sites have been successful, finding relatively large audiences among American news consumers. Nonetheless, all of AJAM is terminating, and both the TV and digital employees are expected to lose their jobs.


check out this article in the Toronto Star from 2013.
Al Jazeera America has the odour of disaster: Burman
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/06/01/al_jazeera_america_has_the_odour_of_disaster_burman.html

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