Al Jazeera America shutting Down

Medialine News 

       The Cable news channel , Al Jazeera America,announced Wednesday that  it will be shutting down on April 30th.  After almost 2 1/2 years and 3 years after the big announcement that they were buying Current TV from Al Gore.

   The reasoning per Al Jazeera America's website:

        Al Jazeera America will shutter its cable TV and digital operations by April 30 of this year, the company announced Wednesday. The decision by the AJAM board was “driven by the fact that our business model is simply not sustainable in light of the economic challenges in the U.S. media marketplace,” said AJAM CEO Al Anstey.

   The Network attracted alot of journalists to join it  such as John Seigenthaler (former NBC News anchor) , Ali Velshi (former CNN) , and others , but it's ratings were never as strong  as it's competitors.  It also had problems with carriers at the very start and recently a controversy over a report about  sports players alleged doping, which they defended as accurate.    The Company says they will expand digital operations in the U.S .  It is unknown what happens to the channel space: if it is removed all together, sold  One  America News seems to want it , or Al Jazerra English takes it's place.

Al Jazeera America : 1 year later

NEWS  MEDIA

Written By Skyler
 Editor of Mychiller

     On , August 20, 2013  Al Jazeera America launched  replacing  Current TV.  So now we have reached one year since launch and how  is it doing?
   Well ratings wise, not to well   there could be an assortment of reasons .  1) Cable : This reason has two, on many cable systems  ,including mine , it's on a higher channel  , while Fox News , MSNBC, and CNN are right to next other  AJAM is out there.  HD rights , it's not available in  HD on many cable systems unlike , FOX News , MSNBC, and  CNN. Many HD viewers may want to watch but be not wanting too.  2) The Name:  The hard thing this channel has it's name . I don't hold  it's name against it I mean most names on American cable tv don't mean anything , look at History Channel , where's the History?  Or Discovery , what I am to discover ?  Or BBC America, not much  BBC to the Americans there.  But many people in America do because of it's foreign sounding name and logo and maybe to an extant it's ownership , the ruling family of the Qatari government.  The company has stated they aren't thinking of changing the name ,because Al Jazeera is the name of the company and the channel is part of the company.  Which makes sense , BBC World News is owned by the BBC (BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC) and the BBC News name is a respected trusted news organization  so why change the name?
     I am kind of glad they didn't just plop Al Jazerra English and say "here you go" , they do simulcast AJE at points of the day. AJAM's  US based newscasts cover alot of international stories and stories here in US.  Unlike MSNBC , which most of it's programming weekdays are opinion programming , and Fox News Channel , which has alot of opinion programming, they don't that you won't see (insert liberal /conservative here) hosting a prime time show on the channel . Instead you get a 8PMET / 5PM PT   News cast anchored by former NBC News anchor  , John Seigenthaler. Yes, a full hour of news from around the world and the US. Not a program telling me why I should  hate republicans or democrats  or CNN  squeezing some random story out any juice they can get.  At 9PMET/6PT you get a news magazine show "America Tonight"  that  gives interesting stories  not constantly focusing on crime like the network news magazine shows , 60 Minutes not in that group of crime laden shows.  At 10PM/7pt   you get a conversation and current affairs show , "Consider  This", which sometimes has some interesting topics. At 11PM/8pt they give another live newscast anchored by Seigenthaler , because we have a west-coast time zone .     The reason why I said I am glad they didn't just plop AJE in  and try to give some American news programming , as well  is because it is kind of lacking. We have a confused CNN  , MSNBC, which has lot of opinion programming ,especially between 2PMET until 5AMET.  Fox News has a mix . I am a person who watches all the news channels , just not all day (that would be crazy). Do find that  Al Jazeera America's un-flashiness , not  having the word breaking news  on all day for no reason , or telling me why insert celeb here has been arrested, married, having a baby,moved to somewhere ,said/did something stupid...etc.  a nice chance of pace. It's a style that I l like about "CBS Evening News" (when I do watch an evening newscast) and a reason why  I don't watch "ABC World News".
       As it hits one year  it has not changed much even though low ratings, which I say is good thing  I would hate that it jumped around got crazy and started copying other channels ideas or programming.  I am also glad we have  more news channels on our systems like AJAM , BBC World News, One America News  , and some have France 24 and I24.  

Current post-mortem

Current 
      The New York Post's Linda Stasi writes about how Current TV staffers are feeling a week after the announcement Al Jazeera  and a staff that happened..

Ominously missing was the creator of Current, the self proclaimed inventor of the Internet and savior of clean energy, Al Gore, although his partner, Joel Hyatt, stood proudly with the Al Jazeera honchos.
“Of course Al didn’t show up,” said one high placed Current staffer. “He has no credibility.
“He’s supposed to be the face of clean energy and just sold [the channel] to very big oil, the emir of Qatar! Current never even took big oil advertising—and Al Gore, that bulls***ter sells to the emir?”
But you won’t be getting that Middle East merriment until April, which is when the network says it will be ready to take over.
“Sometime within three months—no more, no less—we were told,” said the Current staffer.
One person at the meeting, who has already announced that she’s leaving, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, tried to ask about severance packages for those who wouldn’t be staying.
“This isn’t the place to discuss this!” Hyatt barked at her. 

Report: Is Al Gore's Network going to be bought?

Straight Forward #CurrentTV 
      The NewYork Times' Brian Stelter  is reporting that Al Gore's  opinion news network Current TV is being purchased by Al Jazeera  and programming will be dissolved.  It could  be a new channel called "Al Jazeera America"  and not it's  Al Jazeera English news. This comes after   International News Channels like BBC World News and RT have been spreading and gaining in popularity in the past few years into the United States.
 Read the Full story from  the Newyork TImes here 
 Update  (7:29PMET)  Forbes  has more information here