Jabhad Posted November 14, 2006 Al Jazeera English all set to launch Tuesday 14 November 2006, 14:30 Makka Time, 11:30 GMT Khanfar said the launch target is double the original figure Tools: Email Article Print Article Send Your Feedback Al Jazeera's English-language television news channel is all set to reach 80 million homes worldwide. At 1200 GMT on Wednesday, Al Jazeera English will begin broadcasting from the network's main studios in Doha, Qatar. The first such international news and current affairs channel with its headquarters in the Middle East, it will far exceed the original launch target of 40 million cable and satellite households. Wadah Khanfar, the director-general of Al Jazeera network, said: "Our launch figure is over double the original target we set for ourselves. Al Jazeera English platforms: Afghanistan: Tolo TV Australia: Transact, UBI TV Belguim: TV Vlaanderen Bosnia & Herzegovina: Dzemo, H & S, Bulgaria: MSAT, SKAT Croatia: Vodatel Cyprus: Primetel Denmark: Canal Digitaal Estonia: Elion Ettevotted AS, AS STV, Teleset AS, City TV Finland: Canal Digitaal, TTV/Elisa Co-operation Pool France: TPS, Canal Sat, Neuf/Cegetel, Free, T Online, Tele 2, NOOS Germany: KDG, Premiere Subscribers, DNMG, Kabel BW - Land Baden-Wuerttemberg, HanseNet Telekommunikation GmbH - Hamburg, netcologne GmbH - Cologne, Kabel Kiosk (Eutelsat), Telecolumbus - Berlin, and other areas Ghana: Metro TV Greece: Nova, Teledome DSL Honduras: Cable Sula Hong Kong: HK Broadband Indonesia: XL, Ireland: Digital satellite Israel: YES, Pelephone, Cellcom, Orange Italy: Sky Italia Jordan: Jump TV Kenya: Nation TV Kuwait: United Network Company Latvia: Baltkom, IZZI Lebanon: Cablevision Lithuania: Balticum Malaysia: ASTRO, Maldives: Media Net Malta: Multiplus Middle East: NileSat (including subscribers to the Showtime network), ArabSat New Zealand: ORCUS Norway: Canal Digitaal, Consoll IPTV, Next GenTel Poland: Cyfra Plus, Cyfrowy Polsat, Toya (Lodz) Portugal: Novis Qatar: Qatar Cable Romania: iNES Group, DTH Group South Africa: Vodacom, Spain: Jazztelia TV, Orange TV, ZTV-Marina Sweden: Com Hem, Canal Digitaal Switzerland: NAXOO Thailand: Buddy TV The Netherlands: Canal Digitaal, Essent, Xtra Televisie Turkey: Turksat UAE: Etisalat, Evision UK: Digital satellite (Sky Guide 514), Vingo US: Globecast, Fision, Jump TV, VDC Uganda: Nation TV "This is unprecedented in the broadcasting industry - no other international news channel has launched with such a high number of homes across the world. "We will continue to build on this figure after launch and will be looking to expand our reach significantly. This is another reflection of the strength of Al Jazeera brand." In addition to cable and satellite, it will be available on broadband, IPTV, ADSL, terrestrial and mobile phone platforms. Lindsey Oliver, the commercial director of Al Jazeera English, said: "We particularly appreciate the support that has been shown far and wide with distributors signing up to carry Al Jazeera English on the reputation of the Al Jazeera brand, our stated goals, our on air and off air teams, and without having seen the channel on air." Website In addition to cable, ADSL, mobile platforms and satellite, Al Jazeera English will be available as a live stream to the one billion users of the internet worldwide. Al Jazeera's English website, aljazeera.net/english will also be re-launched on Wednesday at 12 GMT to reflect the television's look and editorial content. It will provide live streams of the channel, together with RSS feeds, e-mail newsletters and interactive discussion boards. Aljazeera Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jabhad Posted November 14, 2006 Israeli press Jazeera enters the 'information war' - in English By LARRY DERFNER Talkbacks for this article: 6 Beginning Wednesday, November 15, the sometimes called "CNN of the Arab world," will be out to capture the rest of the world as Al Jazeera International debuts on TV screens globally - in English. The new satellite station will run 24/7, broadcasting 12 hours a day from Al Jazeera's home base in Doha, Qatar, with another four hours each from Washington DC, London and Kuala Lumpur. For star power it will have David Frost doing interviews, with Wednesday's "scoop" scheduled to be his talk with Tony Blair. In its decade on the air, Al Jazeera in Arabic has become the most influential Arab communications medium in history. With some 50 million viewers, it is the most-watched TV news station among Arabs, including Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. And as the Jerusalem-based Israel/Palestine bureau has been one of the most important, most watched news-gathering operations for Al Jazeera, so it will be for Al Jazeera International. This no doubt strikes fear in the hearts of many Israelis, friends of Israel, and Americans. Here as in the US, Al Jazeera is widely thought of as the unofficial communications arm of Al Qaeda. It got that reputation from its post-9/11 interviews with Osama Bin Laden, and its subsequent exclusive broadcasts of Al Qaeda propaganda tapes. The station, however, insists that it broadcasts these interviews and tapes simply because messages from Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are very, very big news, not because it supports the terror organization. Like its parent station, Al Jazeera International is owned by the royal family of Qatar. Al Jazeera, which means "the island," was founded by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, because "Qatar is a small country, and he was a young man who had visited the West, who understood the importance of media, and who rules a small, weak country without resources [except oil], and he figured Al Jazeera would be his army, his source of strength. It turns out he was right," said Haifa University communications Prof. Gabriel Weimann. AL JAZEERA INTERNATIONAL turned down The Jerusalem Post's request for even a brief interview before its debut, with PR head Charlotte Dent saying by e-mail, "We are currently all focusing on launch preparations and are not inviting media into our bureaux yet." So Al Jazeera International will not be here to defend itself against charges leveled by Israeli government spokespeople. But that doesn't really leave the station at such a disadvantage, because Israeli government spokespeople who've been working with Al Jazeera in Arabic for many years have surprisingly little to complain about. In fact, Daniel Seaman, head of the Government Press Office, said, "I have only the utmost respect for Al Jazeera in Israel. They've tried their best to be fair, and even if I disagreed with their coverage at times, it was not one-sided. Given their audience, they show the Arab side, the Palestinian side of the conflict, but they also present Israel's side." Asked if he thought Al Jazeera was fairer to Israel than, say, CNN and BBC, Seaman replied, "Absolutely, they're much better than CNN or BBC." His main complaints against the station are that it often gives too little time to Israeli spokespeople, and sometimes translates their remarks imprecisely. But he applauds the station for "giving Israel a stage [on Arab TV] that it didn't have in the past." Noting that Al Jazeera has introduced Western journalistic values of open debate and criticism of the powers-that-be to Arab media, Seaman said he "hoped for this level of professionalism and more from the English-language version." ARTICLE CONTINUES.....http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=2&cid=1162378390894&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull In the US.. Yanked by yanks Comcast backs away from Arab net By ALI JAAFAR LONDON -- Al-Jazeera Intl. has all but conceded defeat in its effort to gain U.S. distribution in time for its worldwide launch Wednesday. Execs at the nascent English-language offshoot of the Arab broadcaster said Comcast Communications pulled the plug on talks Monday on a deal the net considered essential to gaining a beachhead in the U.S. The Associated Press last week reported Comcast had pulled out of talks but, in fact, negotiations continued, with Comcast offering to roll out the channel regionally. Comcast is the dominant operator in the Detroit area, which has one of the nation's largest Arab-American populations. But AJI execs were holding out for a full rollout across all of Comcast's 12.1 million digital subscribers (Comcast has 24 million digital and analog subs), and they believed a deal was imminent. "We thought we were just awaiting signatures. We feel like we've been led down the garden path. It's a setback for us in the States, but I don't want this to overshadow the fact we've had phenomenal figures in the rest of the world," said one AJI employee who insisted on anonymity. Sources within AJI speculated the reasons for the pullout had to do with U.S. uncertainty about Al-Jazeera's editorial agenda. Negative portrayals of the situation in Iraq are widely thought to have contributed to the Democratic sweep of the midterm elections. But Comcast denied the decision had anything to do with politics. "It comes down to a capacity question. We're not adding a lot of new channels," said Comcast spokeswoman Jenni Moyer. As of last week, Al-Jazeera reportedly also was in talks with Cox Communications, but those won't come to fruition before Wednesday. Al-Jazeera also had hoped to get carriage on one of the two major satellite TV operators, DirecTV or Dish Network. Dish wants to carry AJI on its Arab-language tier, where it carries the Arabic Al-Jazeera. DirecTV doesn't carry either net, but said it is "keeping options open." Even without U.S. distribution, Stateside auds will be able to see the channel on broadband. AJI execs confirmed they will launch with access to 70 million households worldwide, nearly double their initial target of 40 million. Distribution deals have been inked in most major territories, including the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Poland and Australia. AJI execs eventually hope to reach 150 million households worldwide. AJI's journey to get on the tube has been beset by delays. Originally supposed to launch in spring, its broadcast dates were pushed back to summer, and then fall, as a result of technical difficulties. The network hired Brit broadcasting legend David Frost, CNN anchor Riz Khan and former "Nightline" correspondent Dave Marash, which generated headlines, but that apparently wasn't enough to assuage wary U.S. operators. Backroom shuffles also have added to the uncertainty. In March, Wadah Khanfar, previously managing director of the Arabic-language newscaster, was appointed director general of the entire Al-Jazeera network including AJI, while AJI director of programs Paul Gibb unexpectedly quit in August. That said, with more than 30 international news bureaus and four AJI global news centers based in Doha, London, Washington and Kuala Lumpur, AJI is attempting to deliver on execs' claims that it is the world's first truly global news channel. (Michael Learmonth in New York contributed to this report.) Date in print: Tue., Nov. 14, 2006, Los Angeles Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Allamagan Posted November 14, 2006 Nothing happened so far... empty screen! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nin-Yaaban Posted November 15, 2006 not bad idea at all. it will balance out FOX New's biased view of arabs and the middle east in general. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
