Al Jazeera buys Current TV, announces US channel

[Tale]

New York Times: Al Jazeera Acquires Current TV

Cue right-wing insanity.

Current will provide the pan-Arab news giant with something it has sought for years: a pathway into American living rooms. Current is available in about 60 million of the 100 million homes in the United States with cable or satellite service.

Rather than simply use Current to distribute its English-language channel, called Al Jazeera English and based in Doha, Qatar, Al Jazeera will create a new channel, called Al Jazeera America, based in New York. Roughly 60 percent of the programming will be produced in the United States, while the remaining 40 percent will come from Al Jazeera English.

[Fabricated]

Ahahahah, that owns.

[Chimpy]

Time Warner Cable already announced they would stop carrying Current TV due to this deal (their excuse is "removing channels with low ratings" which the ownership change allows them to do without paying a contract penalty).

[Hammond]

Actually its interesting to see a different perspective  .  Although I doubt a lot of carriers will carry this channel and like Time Warner more than a few will drop it. 

[Tale]

Tweet from a reporter I once worked with in Sydney, who now works for Al Jazeera English @ajecathturner:

To opponents of Al Jazeera cable deal: watching the news is a consumer choice. You control your remote. Land of the free, remember?

[Numtini]

Time Warner Cable already announced they would stop carrying Current TV due to this deal (their excuse is "removing channels with low ratings" which the ownership change allows them to do without paying a contract penalty).

I very much enjoy AJ's coverage, but I can't help but think this will be universal and they're not going to get a whole lot for their purchase.

[Ghambit]

Fucking with big Arab money in this way kinda raises the hair on the back of my neck.

[sickrubik]

Fucking with big Arab money in this way kinda raises the hair on the back of my neck.

What?

[Paelos]

I don't watch any news networks, so who cares. Now if AJ buys ESPN, it's time to start a crusade!

[Ghambit]

Fucking with big Arab money in this way kinda raises the hair on the back of my neck.

What?

I dunno, we're trying to screw them out of a lot of money (not that we dont already do that in many ways) along with taking away free speech privileges here.  You dont think that would piss 'em, their board, and their viewers off?
Big moves like this are essentially sabre-rattles at the corporate scale.  I'm saying I'd prefer not to sabre-rattle at the corporate scale.

Follow fundamentalist funding for more reasoning.

Either way it's a cockstab move and we shouldn't do it.  More deal particulars (of note, Al Gore is now $100m richer):

Al Jazeera did not disclose the purchase price, but people with direct knowledge of the deal pegged it at around $500 million, indicating a $100 million payout for Mr. Gore, who owned 20 percent of Current. Mr. Gore and his partners were eager to complete the deal by Dec. 31, lest it be subject to higher tax rates that took effect on Jan. 1, according to several people who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. But the deal was not signed until Wednesday.

Uhh, why is this in 'serious business' btw?  This needs to be in politics.  

edit: More juiciness,

...Like this one from Glenn Beck: "Before Al-Jazeera bought Current TV, TheBlaze looked into buying it but we were rejected by progressive owners."

[croaker69]

Fucking with big Arab money in this way kinda raises the hair on the back of my neck.

What?

I dunno, we're trying to screw them out of a lot of money (not that we dont already do that in many ways) along with taking away free speech privileges here.  You dont think that would piss 'em, their board, and their viewers off?
Big moves like this are essentially sabre-rattles at the corporate scale.  I'm saying I'd prefer not to sabre-rattle at the corporate scale.

Follow fundamentalist funding for more reasoning.

Either way it's a cockstab move and we shouldn't do it.  More deal particulars (of note, Al Gore is now $100m richer):

Al Jazeera did not disclose the purchase price, but people with direct knowledge of the deal pegged it at around $500 million, indicating a $100 million payout for Mr. Gore, who owned 20 percent of Current. Mr. Gore and his partners were eager to complete the deal by Dec. 31, lest it be subject to higher tax rates that took effect on Jan. 1, according to several people who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. But the deal was not signed until Wednesday.

Uhh, why is this in 'serious business' btw?  This needs to be in politics.  

edit: More juiciness,

...Like this one from Glenn Beck: "Before Al-Jazeera bought Current TV, TheBlaze looked into buying it but we were rejected by progressive owners."

wut?

"We" aren't screwing with them.  Who the hell is "we"?  TWC made a business decision.  A cowardly one that may not work out the way they think but it's not to fuck with Arabs or whatever.  As for the 1st Amendment I'll just wait for one of the in-house lawyers to help you out.

[Paelos]

This is going well.

[sickrubik]

I dunno, we're trying to screw them out of a lot of money (not that we dont already do that in many ways) along with taking away free speech privileges here.  You dont think that would piss 'em, their board, and their viewers off?
Big moves like this are essentially sabre-rattles at the corporate scale.  I'm saying I'd prefer not to sabre-rattle at the corporate scale.


Follow fundamentalist funding for more reasoning.

What?

[ghost]

I'm surprised this wasn't immediately moved to Politics.   

[sickrubik]

One media company buying another really doesn't strike me as political.

[Paelos]

One media company buying another really doesn't strike me as political.

But they are turrrrrirrrrisssts.

[sickrubik]

One media company buying another really doesn't strike me as political.

But they are turrrrrirrrrisssts.

Oh, right. Of course, how silly of me.

[Ghambit]

One media company buying another really doesn't strike me as political.

I could care less because I'm perfectly capable of getting the news I need, but Major multinational  newsmedia conglomerates playing musical chairs with eachother is not political at all?   

That's like saying Murdoch has no agenda.

Regardless it's a blow to progressives who wanted better news.

[Paelos]

Also Al Jazerah sounds an awful lot like Al Qaeda.

[Ingmar]

No more than Al Jolson or All State.

[Teleku]

One media company buying another really doesn't strike me as political.

I could care less because I'm perfectly capable of getting the news I need, but Major multinational  newsmedia conglomerates playing musical chairs with eachother is not political at all?   

That's like saying Murdoch has no agenda.

Regardless it's a blow to progressives who wanted better news.

Most progressives I know watch AJ for news anyways.

[sickrubik]

One media company buying another really doesn't strike me as political.

I could care less because I'm perfectly capable of getting the news I need, but Major multinational  newsmedia conglomerates playing musical chairs with eachother is not political at all?   

That's like saying Murdoch has no agenda.

Regardless it's a blow to progressives who wanted better news.

I think you have some massive misconceptions about AJ.

You still haven't... really... explained at all who "we" is or anything else.

Seriously.... What the fuck are you babbling about?

[Paelos]

No more than Al Jolson or All State.

You're in good hands with Al Jazeera.

[Ghambit]

One media company buying another really doesn't strike me as political.

I could care less because I'm perfectly capable of getting the news I need, but Major multinational  newsmedia conglomerates playing musical chairs with eachother is not political at all?   

That's like saying Murdoch has no agenda.

Regardless it's a blow to progressives who wanted better news.

I think you have some massive misconceptions about AJ.

You still haven't... really... explained at all who "we" is or anything else.

Seriously.... What the fuck are you babbling about?

You're supposed to guess.

[Shannow]

Does anyone actually watch Current TV? So TWC goes 'great , ownership changed we can get out of paying fees for this shitty channel' and they're supposed to not do this because we might offend the Arabs? Because they like us so much already?

Watching the reaction of both the lunatic left and right to this will be more amusing than anything actually on Current TV right now.

[ghost]

One media company buying another really doesn't strike me as political.

No, but the conversation surrounding said acquisition was 100% going to be.   

[Bzalthek]

Does anyone actually watch Current TV?

Yes.  And since you opened up with stupid, I'm going to assume the rest is too.

[Draegan]

I only seem to have Current TV in SD so it looks like it straight out of the 80s.  A lot of the production value is pretty low from what I've seen.  They also have that dickhole Keith Olbermann

[Venkman]

Does anyone actually watch Current TV? So TWC goes 'great , ownership changed we can get out of paying fees for this shitty channel' and they're supposed to not do this because we might offend the Arabs? Because they like us so much already?

I think it's just nice timing for TWC. They get to ditch a low rating channel and get a bit of a right wing dogwhistle boon from it.

I like AJ's coverage. I actually find them more balanced than the slanted shit that passes for "news" on the U.S.-branded channels.

[Merusk]

Tweet from a reporter I once worked with in Sydney, who now works for Al Jazeera English @ajecathturner:

To opponents of Al Jazeera cable deal: watching the news is a consumer choice. You control your remote. Land of the free, remember?

It's so cute when you ferigners think we mean that shit applies to anyone not-white.

[Shannow]

Does anyone actually watch Current TV?

Yes.  And since you opened up with stupid, I'm going to assume the rest is too.

Can you not tell the difference between literally and generally or did you just login to insult someone? I usually don't care but the inanity of this post bugs me.

Current TV's overall viewership failed to meet Nielsen's minimum reporting standard, which means that the network's average audience was not large enough to be rated

  (some Reuters article that took all of 30 seconds to find)

I know it won't fit into most people's conspiracy theories about the right and big business but if Al Jazeera or Current TV or whatever had decent ratings TWC would pimp the shit out of it if they could make money. Christ the channel could be called 'TWC is a bunch of fucktards' and if it was profitable they wouldn't fucking care. Big business is evil and only cares about the dollar remember? Or they only care about white people..I forget...

[Engels]

What bothers me most is people who haven't watched AJ and immediately assume all sorts of stuff about it, when in fact its a professional institution on par with the BBC, doing journalism of quality the US hasn't delivered since the 70s.

I wouldn't be surprised if half the reason Current sucked was due to underfunding, the other half being Olberman. It'll be interesting if it thrives under AJ. My only worry is that commentators like TYT will now be lumped in with 'crazy arab people' in the popular mindset, simply due to the xenophobia of the average American viewer.

[croaker69]

Does anyone actually watch Current TV?

Yes.  And since you opened up with stupid, I'm going to assume the rest is too.

Can you not tell the difference between literally and generally or did you just login to insult someone? I usually don't care but the inanity of this post bugs me.

Current TV's overall viewership failed to meet Nielsen's minimum reporting standard, which means that the network's average audience was not large enough to be rated

  (some Reuters article that took all of 30 seconds to find)

I know it won't fit into most people's conspiracy theories about the right and big business but if Al Jazeera or Current TV or whatever had decent ratings TWC would pimp the shit out of it if they could make money. Christ the channel could be called 'TWC is a bunch of fucktards' and if it was profitable they wouldn't fucking care. Big business is evil and only cares about the dollar remember? Or they only care about white people..I forget...

TWC has no idea if AJ will make them money or not at this point but I would guess it's going to get higher ratings than Current did.

[MahrinSkel]

Quick, name the largest single investor in NewsCorp.  Hint: It's not Rupert Murdoch.  If Al Jazeera had named themselves 'Stuff we heard' and gotten some lilly white frontman, they wouldn't have a credibility problem with Americans.

--Dave

[Viin]

It's not?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/8841452/Top-ten-News-Corp-voting-shareholders.html