http://news.yahoo.com/al-jazeera-buys-current-tv-al-gore-002839067--finance.html
Al-Jazeera buys Current TV from Al Gore
By | Associated Press – 3 hrs ago
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Al-Jazeera, the Pan-Arab news channel that struggled to win space on American cable television, has acquired Current TV,
boosting its reach in the U.S. nearly ninefold to about 40 million
homes. With a focus on U.S. news, it plans to rebrand the left-leaning
news network that cofounder Al Gore couldn't make relevant.
The former vice president confirmed the sale Wednesday, saying in a statement that Al-Jazeera shares Current TV's
mission "to give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak
truth to power; to provide independent and diverse points of view; and
to tell the stories that no one else is telling."
The acquisition lifts Al-Jazeera's
reach beyond a few large U.S. metropolitan areas including New York and
Washington, where about 4.7 million homes can now watch Al-Jazeera English.
Al-Jazeera, owned by the
government of Qatar, plans to gradually transform Current into a network
called Al-Jazeera America by adding five to 10 new U.S. bureaus beyond
the five it has now and hiring more journalists. More than half of the
content will be U.S. news and the network will have its headquarters in
New York, spokesman Stan Collender said.
Collender said there are no rules against foreign ownership of a
cable channel — unlike the strict rules limiting foreign ownership of
free-to-air TV stations. He said the move is based on demand, adding
that 40 percent of viewing traffic on Al-Jazeera English's website is
from the U.S.
"This is a pure business decision based on recognized demand," Collender said. "When people watch Al-Jazeera, they tend to like it a great deal."
Al-Jazeera has long struggled to
get carriage in the U.S., and the deal suffered an immediate casualty as
Time Warner Cable Inc., the nation's second-largest cable TV operator,
announced it is dropping Current TV due to the deal.
"Our agreement with Current has been terminated and we will no longer
be carrying the service. We are removing the service as quickly as
possible," the company said in a statement.
Previous to Al-Jazeera's purchase, Current TV was in 60 million homes. It is carried by Comcast Corp., which owned less than a 10 percent stake in Current TV, as well as DirecTV. Neither company announced plans to drop the channel.
In 2010, Al-Jazeera English's managing director, Tony Burman, blamed a
"very aggressive hostility" from the Bush administration for reluctance
among cable and satellite companies to show the network.
Even so, Al-Jazeera has garnered
respect for its ability to build a serious news product in a short time.
In a statement announcing the deal, it touted numerous U.S. journalism
awards it received in 2012, including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism
Award Grand Prize and the Scripps Howard Award for Television/Cable
In-Depth Reporting.
But there may be a culture clash
at the network. Dave Marash, a former "Nightline" reporter who worked
for Al-Jazeera in Washington, said he left the network in 2008 in part
because he sensed an anti-American bias there.
Current, meanwhile, began as a
groundbreaking effort to promote user-generated content. But it has
settled into a more conventional format of political talk television
with a liberal bent. Gore worked on-air as an analyst during its recent
election night coverage.
Its leading personalities are
former New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer
Granholm and Cenk Uygur, a former political commentator on MSNBC who
hosts the show called "The Young Turks." Current signed Keith Olbermann
to be its top host in 2011 but his tenure lasted less than a year before
it ended in bad blood on both sides.
Current has largely been
outflanked by MSNBC in its effort be a liberal alternative to the
leading cable news network, Fox News Channel.
Current hired former CNN
Washington bureau chief David Bohrman in 2011 to be its president.
Bohrman pushed the network to innovate technologically, with election
night coverage that emphasized a conversation over social media.
Current TV,
founded in 2005 by former vice president Gore and Joel Hyatt, is
expected to post $114 million in revenue in 2013, according to research
firm SNL Kagan. The firm pegged the network's cash flow at nearly $24
million a year.
___
AP Television Writer David Bauder in New York contributed to this report.
No comments:
Post a Comment