WASHINGTON: In the first few hours of its debut broadcast Tuesday, the new Al Jazeera America news channel proved itself to be what you might expect in a new mainstream news channel. It was accurate, responsible and technically polished.
The question is: Is that enough?
The odds against the channel attracting a healthy audience are so formidable — more than half of American cable and satellite homes don't even receive it — that Al Jazeera America (AJA) might need more than the just-the-facts-ma'am reporting that it aired in its debut. Despite its laudable goal of avoiding the polarizing aspects of cable news, AJA might be testing the proposition that the straight-up presentation of the news — sans some of the smoke and sizzle — can succeed in a crowded media landscape.
It's also testing whether Americans will embrace anything called Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera America is the fully Americanized version of Al Jazeera English (AJE), the English-language version of Al Jazeera — the pan-Arabic satellite channel that revolutionized news reporting in the Middle East starting in 1996.
AJE launched in 2006 and was an immediate and lasting flop in the United States. Cable operators across the country declined to add it to their channel lineups.
So Al Jazeera's owner, the royal emir of the Gulf state of Qatar, decided to crash the lucrative American market the old-fashioned way: He bought his way in.
In January, Al Jazeera paid $500 million for Current TV, the little-viewed network part-owned by Al Gore. Al Jazeera didn't want Current so much as it wanted Current's contracts with cable companies, which ensure that it is delivered to about 45 million American homes.
(On the eve of AJA's launch, cable operator AT&T U-Verse unexpectedly dropped the channel, wiping about 5 million homes off its subscriber ranks and prompting a lawsuit by Al Jazeera.)
Al Jazeera America has substance but may need spice
Al Jazeera America has substance but may need spice
