Thursday, January 14, 2016

See Ya AJA!

From NY Times:
"Al Jazeera America to Shut Down by April"
 
 The cable news channel Al Jazeera America, which debuted in 2013 to great fanfare when it promised to cover American news soberly and seriously, will be shutting down by the end of April. The move was announced at a companywide meeting on Wednesday. In a memo to the staff, Al Jazeera America’s chief executive, Al Anstey, said the “decision by Al Jazeera America’s board is driven by the fact that our business model is simply not sustainable in light of the economic challenges in the U.S. media marketplace.”  Some staffers saw that as a tacit admission that falling oil prices were behind the closure, though a spokeswoman for the company denied that on Wednesday. Beyond its oil wealth, Qatar is one of the world’s top exporters of liquefied natural gas, whose price has also tumbled. Al Jazeera America went on the air in August 2013 after Al Jazeera bought Al Gore’s Current TV for $500 million. It promised to be thoughtful and smart, free of the shouting arguments that have defined cable news in the United States over the last decade. But meaningful viewership never came, with prime-time ratings sometimes struggling to exceed 30,000 viewers.  To make matters worse, turmoil hit the newsroom last year when staff members complained bitterly of a culture of fear. There was an exodus of top executives, along with a pair of lawsuits from former employees that included complaints about sexism and anti-Semitism at the news channel. In May, Ehab Al Shihabi, the chief executive of Al Jazeera America, was replaced by Mr. Anstey. Morale improved, but ratings remained low.  All these problems were exacerbated, he said, by the fact that a brand associated with the Arab world was a tougher sell in the United States than it was in Europe 
 
^ Whatever the reason I'm glad that AJA is shutting down. I wrote from the beginning that I would never watch it and I never did - apparently no one else did either. I called it right on this one. ^
 
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/business/media/al-jazeera-america-to-shut-down-in-april.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

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