PLANK JANUARY 4, 2013
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In a belated but marvelous Christmas present to Roger Ailes, pan-Arab news broadcaster Al Jazeera on Wednesday announced its purchase of Current TV, the cable news network founded by Al Gore. The result—technically called “Al Jazeera America” but instantly dubbed “Al GoreZEERA” by the Internet—stands to revolutionize cable news programming, fusing the massive wealth and global orientation of Al Jazeera with the spunky, left-wing politics of Current.
Unfortunately, we may never know how this exciting new venture pans out. Because no one will be watching.
No one is currently watching Al Jazeera in the United States because it is impossible to find on television. Despite years of trying, the Doha-based network financed by the Emir of Qatar has not been able to win carriage from any major U.S. cable providers. Current has a spot on the dial, hence its appeal. At the time of the sale, the vice president’s network was available in around 60 million U.S. homes.
Alas, none of them are tuning in to Current either. The network drew around 42,000 prime time viewers on an average night in 2012, according to Nielsen. That is less than 10 percent of CNN's primetime audience and less than one percent of the number of viewers who watched ABC's cross-dressing comedy "Work It" before it was cancelled after two episodes last fall. Many of Current’s carriage agreements will expire in the next few years, and these low ratings mean the network’s prospects for renewal are grim. This sneaky Al Jazeera move won’t help matters. Before the deal, Current was on Time Warner Cable’s list of networks it might drop. After The New York Times broke the news of the deal on Wednesday, Time Warner pulled Current off the air immediately.
Essentially, Current’s estimated $500 million purchase price has bought Al Jazeera a seat at the negotiating table with cable providers around the country. That may seem like a lot to pay for the chance to beg to stay on the air. But it’s pocket change for Qatar, a tiny nation that sits atop 13 percent of the world’s total natural gas supply. Gore, who along with co-founder Joel Hyatt has been trying to offload Current almost since it launched in 2005, will walk away with a staggering $100 million for his 20 percent stake. (The failed Democratic presidential candidate reportedly was desperate to get the deal done by December 31 to save money on his taxes. Because of delays, poor Gore will now have to pay 2013 rates on his windfall.)
But it’s a mistake to get too bogged down in financial concerns when the personnel implications of Al Jazeera America are just so delightful. Early reports say Al Jazeera plans to set up headquarters in New York and produce 60 percent of its programming stateside, with a staff of around 300. It is not known how much, if any, of Current’s stable of talent Al Jazeera will keep. The network's programming likely will be a traditional mix of reported news pieces and in-studio interview and analysis. Al Jazeera won plaudits for its coverage of the Arab Spring and more recent violence in the Middle East, and even earned a commendation from Hillary Clinton, who called the network “real news.” In all likelihood, the network will make sweeping personnel changes, but in the best-case scenario, here’s a list of people who will work for the Emir of Qatar:
Eliot Spitzer
Joy Behar
Gavin Newsom
Jennifer Granholm
David Schuster
Sir David Frost
That last one is a trick: Sir David has been working for Al Jazeera English since 2005, creating such programs as “Frost Over The World” and “The Frost Interview.” Here he is doing a “Frost Interview” with Israeli president Shimon Peres last week. As absurd as it sounds, Al Jazeera English, which is based in Doha, will allegedly remain a separate entity from Al Jazeera America, providing 40 percent of the U.S. network’s programming.
Will American viewers jump at the chance to watch this sort of programming? Does it matter? Al Jazeera America’s leadership seems to believe that with “large-scale resources” and “quality news programming,” it is now poised to conquer cable, a strategy that has not worked for CNN in decades. But the leaders of Al Jazeera have one clear advantage over Jeff Zucker and his ilk. In their bid to build a global news juggernaut, the Emir and his family have no shareholders to answer to. They can wait as long as they need and spend as much as they’d like. If cable operators refuse to renew their contracts, they can try to buy another foundering cable channel. There’s one possible out for the Oprah Winfrey Network.
All of the speculation about the future of Al Jazeera and Current TV neglects one important consideration: the past. Specifically, how will this affect Keith Olbermann? Gore and Hyatt canned Olbermann last fall, after failing in their costly bid to turn Current into a robust left-wing news network with him as their star. Amid complaints about car services and a refusal to work on major election nights, the two sides split and promptly sued each other. Olbermann asks for as much as $70 million in wages and equity compensation in his suit, and who knows, maybe Gore and Hyatt will be more inclined to settle now that they’re flush.
Or perhaps there’ll be a good opportunity for Olbermann at Al Jazeera America. The Emir is hiring.
Rebecca Dana is a former media reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Her first book, Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde, will be published by Putnam on January 24.
23 comments
Don't bother getting too excited about this, New Republic. The lovely and talented Pamela Gellar is taking a brief sabbatical from her mission to see that no Muslims are allowed to practice their faith on American soil so she can spearhead the crusade against Al Qaeda CNN. Don't try to do her job -- you'll never be as good at it as she is. Let's all tell these terrorist TV correspondents that we don't need their kind in this country because American TV news is in fine shape, a haven of rational and informed political discourse.
- DC Spence
January 4, 2013 at 7:09am
Dana got the date wrong. The key date for the purchase and sale was November 6, 2012, not December 31, 2012.
- rayward
January 4, 2013 at 7:52am
Two examples for the kind of "Left wing" political punditry you can expect from any Al-Jazeera organ of dissemination: http://stanfordleft.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/ramadan-zizek-al-jazeera-english-riz-khan-interview-transcript/ From an interview with Slavoj Zizek and Tariq Ramadan: "I will tell you, I spoke with a journalist who was there, namely when they were pulling down Saddam’s statue. You know what he told me? He saw, 20 minutes before, Americans hiring people to go there and do it. It wasn’t only that it was just 50 people, this was simply a staged event. The United States, in a textbook way, made all possible mistakes there, and now they are paying the price. But that’s another topic. What I want to say is that, first, all this scare about Islamism and the religious tendencies of Arabic people, well, first, let’s see who’s talking. I read somewhere that, in the United States, over 30% of the people believe in devils, in ghosts, and so on and so on, so you know, coming from the United States, I don’t think they have any right to deplore the religious naïvety of the Muslim crowds and so on. Just go to the deep American South; I can guarantee you it’s worse than maybe even many Afghanistan villages or whatever." ____________ From an interview with the (former) Editor-in-Chief of Al Jazeera: http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.ca/2006/12/al-jazeeras-editor-in-chief-on-root.html "Do you mean to say that if Israel did not exist, there would suddenly be democracy in Egypt, that the schools in Morocco would be better, that the public clinics in Jordan would function better? I think so. Can you please explain to me what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to do with these problems? The Palestinian cause is central for Arab thinking. In the end, is it a matter of feelings of self-esteem? Exactly. It's because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West's problem is that it does not understand this." _______ The above is all the explanation you need to figure out why spence is so intent in his support for the Qatari news agency. Interesting that Pamela Geller with her blog and limited resources is seen by spence as mightier, in both hatefulness and resources than the Al-Jazeera with its global reach, its explicit and foundational anti-American and anti-Israeli animus and its bottomless financial resources.
- Noga
January 4, 2013 at 8:29am
I have to be honest, during the war in Libya I went daily to Al Jazeera and their Libya blog and I periodically check up on their Syria blog, both of these are (were) woefully underreported by US media. As to this new network I have no idea why they just didn't keep the Current name and then promote the heck out of it. I value a wide range of opinions, as long as it is not repetitive and boring and over the top like Fox I might check it out. If it is then it will have few viewers and essentially we will be receiving their money. By the way, there are a couple of million Arab and Persian Americans, I see nothing wrong with a station that serves their communities.
- blackton
January 4, 2013 at 9:01am
" it is not repetitive and boring and over the top like Fox I might check it out. If it is then it will have few viewers and essentially we will be receiving their money." From what I hear, Fox News leads in ratings most of the other News networks, like CNN and MSNBC. So your premise is wrong, blackton. The more over the top and repetitive the better for the success of the network. BTW, Al-Jazeera would not be a priority for "Persian-Americans" and its ambition is not to serve the Arab community but to make the Arab street (in the Middle East) at least one of America's Main streets. I've watched Al-Jazeera in Arabic when I was in Israel. There is an agenda, a very specific agenda. Here is an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIkrQGz5ats Al Jazeera Throws Party for Child Killer (Samir Kuntar)
- Noga
January 4, 2013 at 9:12am
More on Al-jazeera: http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2013/01/03/is-al-jazeera-a-news-network/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eabrams+%28Elliott+Abrams%3A+Pressure+Points%29 "Any problem here? One, at least: al-Jazeera is wholly owned by the Qatari royal family, whose interests it will pretty obviously protect. It is not, in that sense, a news channel, even if it broadcasts news. Here’s a simple test: is al-Jazeera able to report candidly on events in Qatar? The answer is no."
- Noga
January 4, 2013 at 11:12am
Noga, but that over the top feeds into teabagger nuttery. We simply don't have any pan Arabic nuttery audience in America. I lived in China for a long time, I watched CCTV English news. Most of it was innocuous. Watch the same news in Chinese and it was propaganda heavy. I think you are having a hard time distinguishing between the two. I am not going to watch it in Arabic. And when I said Persian, I just meant news that had more middle eastern focus. I am sure it will have some popularity with Pakistani audience in the states as well and they are not Arabic.
- blackton
January 4, 2013 at 12:15pm
Living in Canada I have been able to watch al Jazeera on ordinary cable. This service presents high quality news w/ objective in-depth reporting and analysis by internationally acknowledged heavyweights. Don't sell the American public short--for many of us, solid and substantive reporting on international dynamics is infinitely more interesting than cheap mockumentaries on the zipper problems of hollywood thinwits. If mind numbing, dumbing down, and encouragement of zombie depression has been part of big money's approach to handling the perceived evils of the democratic process, it may be that a less cynical view of the possibility of intelligence and critical thinking will do much to energize and encourage Americans to get up and start swinging again! Here's to waking up a few somnolent main-stream American brain cells. "Give 'em hell!" didn't a great American president say that? And we can only look forward to what Al Gore will do with the big bucks--it probably won't have much to do with fracking and desecrating the nation's wealth in environmental and human treasure. Hip, hip hooray!
- JohnC
January 4, 2013 at 12:38pm
This is a wonderful development, assuming AJ's new acquisition doesn't get shut out of US cable circulation the way the present AJ has been. I often turn on AJ when overseas. I find it usually is of higher quality than BBC and light years ahead of insipid CNN, propagandistic Fox and all-too-often "tell me what I want to hear" MSNBC. Its reports are usually more in-depth and less sensational than its US and even British competitors. It also is usually more balanced in covering most issues. Now, does it have a big blind spot with respect to Qatar itself? Yes. And does it have a slant in covering some Middle East issues, not least Israel-Palestine? Yes. But that slant is usually less severe than you might expect, and certainly less so than Fox and no worse than CNN or MSNBC. Like Blackton, I think it might be better off just retaining the Current name, but I'll leave it to AJ to figure out its branding and marketing far better than I can. Bottom line: Assuming the newly acquired channel doesn't in effect get censored by cable news broadcasters refusing to carry it, this is a very welcome addition to our paltry array of cable news choices, in terms of depth and perspective.
- Thunderroad
January 4, 2013 at 2:05pm
Hopefully the trend of cable companies bundling everything whether you want it or not will come to a close now that Intel is trying to offer an alternative. That would make it possible for us to all subscribe to the channels we want, and I suspect it would raise revenues for some of the smarter boutique channels. That aside, the irony of Behar, Shuster and the rest of the anti-oil types being paid with 100% oil money is too funny. In fact, Gore profiting to the tune of $100M of oil money is even funnier. My guess is their principles will get the better of them, and they'll all resign within 24 hours. How does that saying go? When those that tell us global warming is an emergency start acting like it's an emergency, then we'll know it's time to take it seriously? Something like that.
- seattleeng
January 4, 2013 at 3:23pm
You know what? I agree with seattleeng, will wonders never cease. The cable company is getting on my last nerve. One can't even watch Law & Order reruns now without a "package," ie, spending more money. We are going to fire them I think and save a bundle.
- Sophia
January 4, 2013 at 5:07pm
Ditto, about the oil situation. Agreeing with seattle twice in one day? It is a miracle. Bipartisanship lives!
- Sophia
January 4, 2013 at 5:08pm
" This service presents high quality news w/ objective in-depth reporting and analysis by internationally acknowledged heavyweights. ... Now, does it have a big blind spot with respect to Qatar itself? Yes. And does it have a slant in covering some Middle East issues, not least Israel-Palestine? Yes" That's like saying, the girl is an intact virgin, only what? She's just a little bit , really a teeny little bit, pregnant.
- Noga
January 4, 2013 at 7:10pm
sophia :-) noga, I am not saying you are wrong or right, just that we have to wait and see. I saw nothing propagandistic on its Libya blog or its Syria blog, just straight up news. US does not cover what is going on in Syria so I go to that blog and read (I know you hate me for it) Haaretz (I only read my limit of free articles each month though, naughty me)
- blackton
January 4, 2013 at 7:20pm
""(I know you hate me for it) Haaretz "" I don't hate you at all for reading haaretz. What a silly thing to say, blackton. What do you take me for? I read Haaretz myself, like I said. But I know when I read real news or plausible analysis and when it moves over to far leftist preaching and sneaking in of irrelevant fulminations. I suppose you have the same inbuilt filter for when you read sources you know are bent in this or that direction. I can even agree with you about the usefulness of the reporting of AJ from Syria or Libya. But when the same reporters report from Israel or about Israel, or about America, they undergo a miraculous transformation, and are no longer capable of almost pronouncing one statement which is not tainted with steep and cheap bias, suspicion and very often misinformation. If you watched the interview with Zizek and Ramadan you would have seen how the anchor fails to ask critical questions that test the premises of these two individuals. This is the kind of fare and more of it, that you can expect to get from AJ in America. Too many Canadians have a reflexive anti-American attitude (sometimes it borders on the absurd, how ingrained and gratuitous it can get). That they like AJ is not surprising, since it presents America in such an unflattering light that actually appeals to these Canadian sensibilities. Canadian anti-Americanism is nothing like European or Arab anti-Americanism. It's rather silly and shallow and self-indulgent more than it is real or genuinely heartfelt. As an example you can look at the way American news organizations are ridiculed as offering nothing more than " cheap mockumentaries on the zipper problems of hollywood thinwits" while AJ is "objective in-depth reporting and analysis by internationally acknowledged heavyweights". Really? Does that description fit your own or anybody's experience of American news providers? What utter nonsense.
- Noga
January 4, 2013 at 8:52pm
A CNN website report takes a look at another motivation of the Qatari emir in expanding Al Jazeera in the US: Qatar's dependence on the US for its physical survival and the consequent need to cultivate a friendly US audience. Plausible. Why Al Jazeera set its sights on US. Pro-Israel press watch dog group Camera has this analysis: Al Jazeera's 'Real News' Comes with a Cost.
- amidut
January 4, 2013 at 9:16pm
Al Jazeera English probably doesn't show stuff like this: Morsi in 2010: No to negotiations with descendants of apes and pigs. This is Muhammad Morsi, educated at US taxpayer expense.
- amidut
January 5, 2013 at 7:56am
After Al Jazeera, Press TV ...
- Noga
January 5, 2013 at 11:38am
"That's like saying, the girl is an intact virgin, only what? She's just a little bit , really a teeny little bit, pregnant." LOL, good one, Noga. But all I'm saying is that all news channels are very pregnant with their own biases and inadequacies. AJ is usually great in non-Middle East news, which after all is most of the world and which I would expect to consume most of its US programming. As for the Middle East, most of the (admittedly limited amount of) coverage I've seen has been pretty even-tempered, even when discussing Israel. But even given that it has a definite slant, that slant and its other inadequacies certainly are not as bad as the way Fox presents the news and no worse than other cable channels.
- Thunderroad
January 5, 2013 at 3:34pm
"... that slant and its other inadequacies certainly are not as bad as the way Fox presents the news and no worse than other cable channels." It's so much more than a slant. But of course we cannot reach an agreement about it. I have been following A-J for years and I think I have a pretty good idea what they are about. I pointed to two interviews, one on A-J the other with its editor-in-chief. I also posted something about the celebration by A-J in Lebanon of Samir Quntar. During the years of the intifada, when Israeli kids were being blown up in pizzerias, A-J hailed these terrorist attacks as "martyrdom operations". A-J in Arabic is certainly much more graphic and populist than its English-speaking version but the core principles remain the same.
- Noga
January 5, 2013 at 5:34pm
No, Sophia, wonders never cease. I agree with seattle, for about the tenth time. I've been wanting designer cable-channel packages for years, but Comcast doesn't allow them. And they leave channels I'm interested in out of their packages. I would like RTV, the Russian news channel, in a package, but it costs at least $15 a month extra as a single channel. I wouldn't mind if Al-Jazeera/Current TV stays in the package I have now. I agree with others here in wanting different viewpoints. I don't care if I agree with everything discussed or not. But Comcast is now threatening to cut off Current TV in Seattle. They won't include channels I want and they take away channels I might be interested in. I thought America was supposed to be about individual choice. I'm certainly paying enough money for designer channel packages--I'm on Digital Preferred. I smell monopoly.
- magboy47.
January 5, 2013 at 6:56pm
" I agree with others here in wanting different viewpoints" Yes, I suppose lies and distortions of easily verifiable records and facts can be called "different viewpoints".
- Noga
January 6, 2013 at 10:36am
Indeed Noga, lies and distortions do represent a different viewpoint and is essential to understand the nature of those spewing them but I don't read it for that, that is what media watchers are for, I look for whatever they have that others don't cover and that is the Syria blog (and thankfully Israeli newspapers are covering it as well) I was teasing about Haaretz by the way, I know you wouldn't hate me for that just that like you said you aren't a big fan of it. I like it a lot and as a non Israeli non Jew makes me view the state of Israel more favorably even if it makes me hate Netanyahu the more.
- blackton
January 6, 2013 at 11:30pm