October 31, 2005 The Selling of Al Jazeera TV to an International Market By ERIC PFANNER and DOREEN CARVAJAL, International Herald Tribune
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/31/business/31jazeera.html?pagewanted=print Fruit cups and tea were served, and then came the matinee feature: a documentary about the Arabic broadcaster Al Jazeera, full of American bomb bursts and bloodied and bandaged Iraqi children. At an international trade show for television programming on the French Riviera recently, Al Jazeera presented the documentary, "Control Room," to promote an English-language news channel it plans to introduce next year. While the setting, a salon in the Majestic Hotel, suggested just another ambitious broadcaster starting a new service, the graphic images on the screen demonstrated how Al Jazeera, scourge of the Pentagon and some Middle Eastern governments, is decidedly different. Al Jazeera, which styles itself as an independent voice in a turbulent region that is short on press freedom, is shaping its new channel, Al Jazeera International, with the same spirit: outspoken and unwilling, in its own words, "to sanitize war." Al Jazeera's aggressive journalistic style has led to its reporters' being banned from Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. It has also inspired new competition from the likes of the BBC, which announced plans last week to start a news channel in Arabic. But Al Jazeera's approach complicates the job of selling the English-language service to broadcast outlets and potential advertisers. Only days after the convention in Cannes, the Arabic-language channel broadcast a videotape from Osama bin Laden's No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the latest in a series of videos from Al Qaeda leaders shown on Al Jazeera. A Spanish court recently convicted one of the channel's reporters of collaborating with the terrorist organization, a decision that the broadcaster is appealing. With the expected start of Al Jazeera International about six months away, the broadcaster faces some pressing questions: Given the notoriety of Al Jazeera, will the English-language service be able to persuade enough satellite and cable services to carry it, particularly in the United States market? Will advertisers sign up, or will they prefer to steer clear of associations with Al Jazeera? "Al Jazeera is a controversial channel, and I don't think the positions of the new version will be all that different," said Oussama Jamal, managing director of Starcom Egypt, a company that buys TV time on behalf of advertisers. "Some clients don't want to associate themselves with news and politics in this way." In a surge of hiring intended to make Al Jazeera International palatable to Western viewers and advertisers, the channel has secured the services of high-profile television personalities like David Frost, the veteran BBC interviewer, and Josh Rushing, who was a United States military spokesman in the current war in Iraq. From CNN, it has added the anchor Riz Khan, and from Sky News of Britain, the reporter David Foster. Al Jazeera offered few details on the expected content of the English service, or on the salaries of some of its prominent hires. It said the service would broadcast around the clock, seven days a week, with a mix of news, discussion programs and documentaries. Al Jazeera International said it would be editorially independent of its Arabic sister organization but would draw on its resources "where appropriate." "We are catering to a global audience and will be committed to presenting all sides of an issue," a spokeswoman, Charlotte Dent, said in an e-mail message. Nigel Parsons, managing director of Al Jazeera International, said he was pleased with its preparations, though he said patching together a global distribution platform through cable and satellite operators remained "a work in progress." He said the channel would be happy to be able to reach 30 million households globally when it is introduced. "We hope we would be judged on our merits but recognize that we may be seen as a sister channel" of the original, controversial Arabic-language channel, he said by telephone. In Cannes, at the Mipcom audiovisual trade fair earlier this month, Jill Grinda, who is distribution manager for Europe and Asia of Al Jazeera International, said it was talking to "the dominant players with the largest number of subscribers in their countries," while Mr. Parsons said there were some hot prospects for distribution in the United States, though he acknowledged that negotiations were difficult. "Cable operators, rather sadly, say Americans are not interested in international news, which is a shame, because we want to be a conduit for understanding between different cultures," he said. The channel would have natural appeal to growing Muslim populations in Europe, he said, but Al Jazeera International is hoping for a wider audience. Whether such audiences translate to advertising revenue is another matter; media buyers say many marketers in the Middle East prefer local entertainment programs. In the past, Al Jazeera's advertisers have included United States multinational companies like General Motors and Procter & Gamble, however. Mr. Parsons said that the channel would like to generate "significant revenue streams" within three to five years and that these could come from a variety of sources including, for instance, commercial sponsorship of segments like weather forecasts. Al Jazeera International executives in Cannes said the new channel would feature an interview format program with Frost, to be based in London, and a live daily Washington program, with Mr. Khan as host, produced to allow interaction with viewers. One of the most interesting hires is Mr. Rushing, a former Marine spokesman who features prominently in "Control Room," the documentary by Al Jazeera. Mr. Rushing, who left the Marines last year, did not make an appearance at Cannes. A spokeswoman said he had other commitments. Parsons said Rushing could help Al Jazeera International fill a unique role as a builder of bridges. "While America is often bad at understanding the rest of the world," he said, "the rest of the world is bad at understanding America." Eric Pfanner reported from London for this article and Doreen Carvajal from Cannes, France. ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
