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A man works at his desk in the Al-Jazeera America broadcast center in New York. Photograph: Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters
A man works at his desk in the Al-Jazeera America broadcast center in New York. Photograph: Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

Al-Jazeera America to shut down after less than three years on air

This article is more than 8 years old

The Qatar-funded cable news network’s last US broadcast will be 30 April, as viewership remained meager and declining oil prices put a damper on funding

Less than three years after its launch, al-Jazeera America is shutting down. The news was abruptly announced to staff on Wednesday afternoon. The network’s last day on the air will be 30 April.

The enterprise was troubled from the beginning: seven hours into its first day on the air, al-Jazeera America was already mired in a lawsuit with one of its carriers, AT&T, which dropped the network before it even began. Its viewership was usually between 20,000 and 40,000 viewers in prime time – Fox News averaged 1.95m viewers in the third quarter of 2015.

With few cable operators willing to add the network to already overcrowded cable plans (and even among the willing, only to the most expensive plans) and skittishness about the association of the channel with the Middle East in the conservative US advertising world, the network never found its footing.

Al Anstey was brought in to turn the network around in May; its first CEO, Ehab El Shihabi, was unceremoniously let go. When the network’s employees announced its unionization a few weeks later, it noted that management had refused to include senior staff.

The network says it will expand digital operations. “I greatly respect the unrivaled commitment and excellent work of our team, which has created great journalism,” wrote Anstey in a press release confirming the shutdown. “We have increasingly set ourselves apart from all the rest, and the achievements of the past two-and-a-half years should be a source of immense pride for everyone.”

Andrew Tyndall, publisher of venerable TV news industry newsletter The Tyndall Report, mused: “I’ve always said right from the start, ‘Why did they open up?’ I couldn’t see the point. Trying to start a cable news network is such a 1990s thing to do and they were trying to establish a brand in a medium that was yesterday’s medium. Why not just run a website?”

Al-Jazeera’s foray into American TV was a long time brewing; the state-operated, Qatar-based network had developed a reputation for clear reporting on the Middle East during a time when many US networks were being criticized for downsizing overseas staff and flying in inadequately knowledgeable reporters. Spurred by the approbation, the network bought Al Gore’s flailing news network Current TV for half a billion dollars and prepared to relaunch it (that, too, produced a lawsuit).

“There will be less opinion, less yelling, and fewer celebrity sightings [than our competitors],” said El Shihabi during the company’s conference call with press just before al-Jazeera America’s launch. “We are not ‘infotainment’.”

The network, funded by the oil wealth of the Qatari royal family, never relied on traditional industry economics.

“There’s a 15-year-old effort by Qatar to establish itself as a global influence,” Tyndall pointed out. “That’s not only by spending enormous amounts of money as a sporting venue and a tourist venue and a prestige airline and an academic center; there are all kinds of ways they’ve spend their fossil fuel wealth establishing themselves as a global brand.”

But that wealth has diminished recently. Oil is now below $30 a barrel and salary rises across the tiny nation are projected to be the lowest in five years, according to a recent report.

Ultimately, infotainment may have been what the people wanted. CNN’s Jeff Zucker, taking the reins from longtime boss Jim Walton in January of the same year, went the opposite direction, adding staff like former Travel Channel chef Anthony Bourdain in a bid to compete with the Discovery Channel, among others. CNN has spent the last few years growing; al-Jazeera, despite that initial interest, has not.

Peter Szekely, president of the News Guild, under which al-Jazeera was (and the Guardian US is) unionized, said: “Al-Jazeera America’s abrupt decision to shut down will deprive Americans of one of the most reliable, high quality digital and television news outlets in the country. It is a sad day for American journalism.”

  • This article was updated to add comment from the News Guild sent after publication

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