Al Jazeera International Continues “Campaign For Carriage”

Broadcasting & Cable’s story about Dave Marash‘s Al Jazeera International gig includes several interesting tidbits about the new network. Anne Becker writes:

“AJI is funded by the Emir of Qatar, who launched the Arab-language Al Jazeera in 1996, and it will provide an objective, impartial worldwide perspective on news without political bias from any government agency, says its Commercial Director Lindsey Oliver, who joined the network last year after nine years at CNBC Europe.

The network will air via a single feed, following each news day around the world by broadcasting nearly five-hour chunks in English from each of its broadcast centers in Doha, Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington. Viewers from around the world will all see the same content at the same time. The centers will be connected via a two-way fiber, which makes coordinating production easier.

‘This is an attempt to decentralize the news,’ Oliver said yesterday. ‘We really want to get this global-world-village feel of news.’

Oliver has spent the last six months crisscrossing the country, often with staffers already hired by the network in tow, to campaign for carriage on U.S. cable and satellite systems, as well as other platforms such as IPTV and cellphone video services like Verizon’s VCast.

Hoping to reach a core audience of young viewers and ‘middle-aged business people who are educated and news-savvy,’ Oliver said the network will cobble together carriage on as many of these platforms as possible to get the widest distribution by launch.” More…