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Article: Here comes Al-Jazeera

It looks like the article is correct in that you can no longer see Al Jazeera English video streaming in the U.S. And when it debuts, you also won't be able to see Al Jazeera America via the web either. Apparently they don't want to compete with cable systems that will be carrying Al Jazeera America.

In the NYC area, Al Jazeera pays WRNN TV Kingston NY to run Al Jazeera English on one of their subchannels, making it a must carry in NYC and some NJ systems. My Time Warner system in NJ, just across the Hudson River from NYC, doesn't carry WRNN. My dad's system, Verizon Fios, does carry it. And my friend who has Time Warner in NYC also carries the WRNN feed of Al Jazeera. I assume WRNN will switch to Al Jazeera America when it debuts.

Which means people in the U.S. will no longer have access to the Al Jazeera English international service. And if their cable system doesn't carry it, or they don't subscribe to cable, they won't have Al Jazeera America either. Seems short-sighted in this day and age where many people just go to an app or website to watch TV.
 
Gregg said:
It looks like the article is correct in that you can no longer see Al Jazeera English video streaming in the U.S.  And when it debuts, you also won't be able to see Al Jazeera America via the web either.  Apparently they don't want to compete with cable systems that will be carrying Al Jazeera America.
Click to expand...

The article was only referring to Al Jazeera English not being able to stream their own programming for Internet users in the United States. That means other folks may still stream their programming for Internet users in the United States.
 
I was one of the ones that got screwed. I used to watch Al Jazeera every night for the world news but now KCET dropped it, the stream on my Samsung smart TV is dropped and so is on my iPad. Since charter cable has no plans to carry it, i absolutely can't watch anymore.
 
umfan said:
A product that will cume far less than Current TV did.

No easy feat to achieve that, but AJZ has.
Click to expand...
I think what puts the network at a disadvantage (aside from the negative perception some have of Al Jazeera) is that they're launching with no HD feed, which is almost unheard of in 2013.

I'm rooting for Al Jazeera America to succeed and will check it out, but I'm also someone who rarely strays from the HD tier on my cable box.
 
We're the opposite on that as I rarely stray into the HD tier, but I have to believe they were lucky to get the clearance they did and sacrificed HD to have a potential wider reach.

I'd just as soon that they fail. For me, it's a waste of bandwidth. There are WAY too many channels already.

To each their own.
 
AJA has said little about its online plans. Al Shihabi said the company’s goal is to get near-universal carriage on television, making the worries about the online audience moot.
Click to expand...

That may be a mistake. These days, online is more than just a way to reach people who can't see you on cable. ESPN mandates you get them on cable in order to get them online.

Even beyond their alleged ties to al-Qaeda, plain racism may hold back AJA. It has a clearly Arabic name and logo that will prevent a lot of people from even considering it even if it weren't for the bin Laden factor.
 
Neel Mehta said:
I was one of the ones that got screwed. I used to watch Al Jazeera every night for the world news but now KCET dropped it, the stream on my Samsung smart TV is dropped and so is on my iPad. Since charter cable has no plans to carry it, i absolutely can't watch anymore.
Click to expand...

Hopefully they'll be smart enough to add snippets of their shows/articles online like the other news channels do.
 
Boy, am I glad I have 2 providers. This morning
somewhere around 9AM PDT I noticed Uverse ch189 had no
audio. This had been CurrentTV. Since I am totally
blind, I aksed some1 to read for me. It was in Spanish,
translated, means "no more love" So I thought at least
by 12noon they would have the feed.
Actually in running a duckduckgo search, I find a
Reuters story which says AT&T dropped the cahannel as
they had a contract despute.
Meanwhile AJAM had listed Uverse in their channel
finder, which now doesn't work for me in Linux.
Anyway, once an actual newscast got going, I was
pleasantly surprised how much time they spent on Egypt,
including an analyst.
I will certainly be more than curious in seeing how
extensively they cover live events, even if or while
they walk over a next show?
As a beginning, I found starts of our other
news-channels more dramatic, as live anchors were our
bridge
 
I certainly niglected to mention that I enjoyed the
launch on Dish Network ch215 But since my previous
message, I visited an English Aljazeera podcast site.
Seems like each audio or video link endsup with a 101kb
mp4 file instead of an actual program. It plays with no
sound, no matter which of mplayer or cvlc, so maybe
there's a print announcement?
As bad as it is blocking streams, certainly
redirecting-and-blocking podcasts through feedburner,
is quite an over-reaction
 
Watched a bit of it, its a decent product.
One wonders if they would have had an easier time if they had come up with a name that most people don't associate with "terrorist mouthpiece"
 
Stupid move blocking the webstream in the U.S., and apparently there have been many complaints. While I'm glad to have AJA on my cable system, I also wanted to still have access to the "world" version. Sometimes I don't want news from an American perspective.

The webstream was also 16x9, while AJA is 4x3 SD. :mad:
 
Morgan Wick said:
Well, the article seems to indicate that cutting off the webstream was a requirement of cable carriage.
Click to expand...

Probably for those still under the old Current carriage agreements for sure; Keith Olbermann laid out in his settled lawsuit that was one of the reasons him and Current never jibed because they never allowed any real streaming of his show outside clips.
 
With two major cable chains having dropped AJA (Time Warner / Bright House is the other, after they even announced converting Current to AJA), blocking anything and everything from AJE, and AJA's reluctance to put their own material online, I predict that AJA will be a cable "New Coke" in a couple of years.
 
azumanga said:
With two major cable chains having dropped AJA (Time Warner / Bright House is the other, after they even announced converting Current to AJA), blocking anything and everything from AJE, and AJA's reluctance to put their own material online, I predict that AJA will be a cable "New Coke" in a couple of years.
Click to expand...

Sad but true.
 
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