Al Jazeera acquires Al Gore's Current TV

[clearvision]

CBS News:

Al-Jazeera, the Pan-Arab news channel that struggled to win space on American cable television, has acquired Current TV, boosting its reach 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.

 

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Interesting.

[Geee]

Al Jazeera Hearts Al Gore's Current TV

 

“Al Jazeera is putting the final touches on a deal to take over Current TV, the low-rated cable channel that was founded by Al Gore and his business partners seven years ago,” the New York Times claims:

If the deal is completed, 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 based in New York, according to people with knowledge of the deal negotiations. The channel may be called Al Jazeera America. Roughly 60 percent of the programming will be produced in the United States, while the remaining 40 percent will come from Al Jazeera English.

Al Jazeera may absorb some Current TV staff members, according to the people, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. But Current’s schedule of shows will most likely be dissolved in the spring.

http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2013/01/02/lateral-move/

[Valin]

Current TV rejected Glenn Beck purchase offer over ideology, accepted Al Jazeera offer

 

[clearvision]

Time Warner dropping Current TV. (I did not know they had it).

[Geee]

Time Warner dropping Current TV. (I did not know they had it).

 

It's been on Direct TV for as long as I can remember.

[Geee]

I posted this in Community a couple of years ago: (Yikes have I been here that long!!!)

 

http://www.therightreasons.net/index.php?/page/politicalplayers/_/business/current-media-llc-r71

[SrWoodchuck]

If only ManBearPig was required to relocate to Qatar as part of the deal........of course he'd have to be renamed ManBearSnake....ManBearRat....ManBearGoat.....or something comicly Islamically correct.

[clearvision]

One article I saw said they moved quickly to close the deal as they were trying to get it done before end of year to avoid the tax increases. But they missed. Not sure if that is why they did not wrap up the Time Warner portion first.

[Geee]

Al-Jazeera seen as using Al Gore to bolster network’s legitimacy in United States

 

Is Al-Jazeera trying to use former Vice President Al Gore to gain acceptance in America? Yes, say some experts.

On Wednesday it was announced that the Qatari-funded news station had purchased Current TV, the liberal cable channel co-founded by Gore, for a reported $500 million. Gore and fellow co-founder Joel Hyatt will join the advisory board of Al-Jazeera America, the network set to replace Current TV.

Al-Jazeera, which currently has both English and Arabic language stations, is seen by many as having an anti-Israel and anti-American slant.

“I have a guess, an impression, that Al-Jazeera is looking for more respectability and more — not just more market outlets — but more of an image of being let’s say ’non-partisan’ or ‘mainstream,’ whatever you want to call it,” David Pollock, a scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has written on Al-Jazeera and often appears as a commentator on the network, told The Daily Caller.

 

http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/04/al-jazeera-seen-as-using-al-gore-to-bolster-networks-legitimacy-in-united-states/

[Valin]

The Al Jazeera Liberals

Jonathan S. Tobin

1/4/13

 

The sale of Al Gore’s Current TV to Al Jazeera is apparently more than just a business deal in which the world’s most prominent critic of fossil fuels made a fortune with an oil-rich emirate. According to the New York Times editorial page, the creation of a new Al Jazeera America is a blow struck for diversity in journalism. The Times feels Time Warner Cable is wrong to drop the new channel from its broadcast lineup. The implication is that those who have expressed shock or outrage about the spectacle of a former vice president of the United States becoming not merely a business partner but an advocate for a network that is well known for its anti-American and anti-Israel bias are either narrow-minded or in some way prejudiced against Arabs and Muslims.

 

The idea that the general disgust about Gore’s $100 million Arab oil windfall is more evidence of American parochialism or prejudice is absurd. No one is trying to censor Al Jazeera. If there are enough American viewers who want to watch news broadcast from the perspective of the channel’s Qatari government owners, then cable providers will give it to them and they are welcome to it. But that doesn’t obligate Time Warner or any other distributor to give it valuable space on a list of available channels if there aren’t enough viewers to justify such a decision. After all, those who want to look at the world from the point of view of those who promote 9/11 truther myths and who sympathize with those who fought the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan can always watch Al Jazeera on the Internet or find other outlier niches to hold their attention.

 

The real issue here is not a false argument about diversity. It is instead one about what it means to be a liberal in today’s media environment. As Alana noted yesterday, Gore refused to sell his channel to conservative Glenn Beck saying that he didn’t wish to see his vanity project fall into the hands of those who disagreed with his politics. Fair enough. But the fact that Gore sees Al Jazeera as a good match for his brand of American liberalism[= speaks volumes about the nature of that set of beliefs.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Of Complexities, Contradictions and Second Chakras

Ed Driscoll

1/4/12

 

Al Gore believes that the world is going to come an end in less than five years. Over the years, he professes to attempt to solve the “problem” of reducing the earth’s “carbon footprint” by expending plenty of carbon himself, with first a movie, and then a rock concert, and eventually a TV channel. He demands that the rest of us change our lifestyle to suit his worldview, but publicly vows not to change his, Al lives in a mansion[/img], flies around in a private plane, and, this, along with his various business ventures, gives him an overall carbon footprint the size of well, one giant Manbearpig. Or as Ann Coulter once quipped, “I kind of respect [Al] more, it shows he is not stupid enough to believe all this global warming nonsense. He’s trying to get us to believe. Okay, fine, he may be a hypocrite but at least he’s not a moron.”

 

But that’s Coulter; Al’s long been a punchline for all of us on the right. Centrist blogger Ann Althouse piles on, adding, “Al Jazeera hands Al Gore the second-chakra-releasing sum of $100 million.” But at what point does Al become a joke among liberal late-night comedians? Ace notes that the prominent socialist sold his business at the end of 2012 to avoid paying higher tax rates:

 

Al Gore tried to hurry up the sale so he could avoid the increased taxes beginning January 1st. Lot of interesting stories the media has no interest in, eh? The media justifies its intense coverage of Republican sexual affairs on grounds that they evidence hypocrisy, and so are more important than the affair itself; but when Al Gore tries to avoid the higher tax rates he agitates for, it’s a single sentence in dispatch.

 

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Inconvenient Truths About Al Jazeera

Al Gore's due diligence must have missed the on-air party, with cake, for a deadly terrorist.

L. GORDON CROVITZ

1/6/13

 

Al Gore and his co-investors just sold liberal cable channel Current TV to Al Jazeera, the network bankrolled by the emir of Qatar. How much in carbon offsets does Mr. Gore need to balance his estimated $100 million from the sale to an oil sheik?

 

(Snip)

 

Founded in 1996, Al Jazeera became well known after 9/11. In a November 2001 New York Times Magazine NYT -1.92% article, Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami wrote that the network's staffers are "either pan-Arabists—nationalists of a leftist bent committed to the idea of a single nation across the many frontiers of the Arab world—or Islamists."

 

In 2007, the liberal Nation magazine said that "field reports are overwhelmingly negative with violent footage played over and over. . . . There's a clear underlying message: that the way out of this spiral is political Islam." Dave Marash, formerly of ABC's "Nightline," quit Al Jazeera's English-language station in 2008 when producers in Qatar ordered up anti-American programming.

(Snip)

[SrWoodchuck]

I see stark Dark vs. Light differences between Al Jeez & EWTN.

[Geee]

Current situation: Staffers talk about first meeting with Al Jazeera

 

Just call him Al Gorezeera.

Yesterday morning, the still shell shocked staff at Current TV was called to an all hands staff meeting at its San Francisco headquarters, which was teleconferenced to their offices in LA and NYC, to meet their new bosses.

That would be two of Al Jazeera’s top guys: Ehab Al Shihabi, executive director of international operations, and Muftah AlSuwaidan, general manager of the London bureau.

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.

Getty Images

FIRST MEETINGS: Current TV staffers teleconferenced with their new bosses.

“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?”

The meeting, while not contentious, was, according to staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity, miserable.

 

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/current_situation_XLE3W50v6I9Gbyqe6Z4pFP

[SrWoodchuck]

The meeting, while not contentious, was, according to staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity, miserable.

 

Curiously........I don't give a damn.