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223 Messages
Al Jazeera America added to Verizon FiOS.
Al Jazeera America was just added to Verizon FiOS a couple of days ago. Could U-verse be next?
Scholar
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223 Messages
Al Jazeera America was just added to Verizon FiOS a couple of days ago. Could U-verse be next?
vid30jk
Scholar
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129 Messages
10 years ago
Could possibly, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Judging by the CenturyLink PRISM lineup, it would be on 220 if it showed up.
Interesting to note:
Personally, I could care less if it gets carried. AT&T has given their BeIN sports plenty of promotion and was the only one to take a chance on their BeIN 3D channel. AJAM can't even get anyone in their list of carriers to pick up, on wide distribution, the HD versions of BeIN.
I think AJAM should be the one to blink in this staring contest with AT&T.
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dhascall
Master
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9.8K Messages
10 years ago
I hope that it comes to UV. I think that the legal wrangling may be more of a stumbling block than an impetus. It is on Comcast, TWC, Brighthouse, Dish, Direct and now FiOS. Sounds like Hallmark.
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chuck6961
Explorer
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20 Messages
10 years ago
No offence to anybody but why do people want this channel so bad?
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flutist1963
Former Employee
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66 Messages
10 years ago
I agree. If people want this channel so bad, why is no one watching it. Everything I have read states that less than 20,000 are watching it.
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vid30jk
Scholar
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129 Messages
10 years ago
That's the question, but a real answer lies in something no one has focused on yet.
Before AJAM went to air, it was an online-only channel predominantly. In some major markets like NYC, it was available as "Al Jazeera English" over some PBS stations' subchannels, but it was only a handful at best.
There was much hubbub when it took everything to cable, no online stream available.
So if you think about that angle, just WHO were their big followers? The "youth" who are tech-savvy, and maybe caught the odd 10-15 minutes of their stream if something was interesting enough to watch for awhile, then it was back on to surfing or texting. The SAME group that has been lumped into the "cord-cutters."
You also have to ask yourself, if it was so successful in its previous iteration -- CURRENT -- then why just sell out? (Let's just leave it there for this discussion.) It really wasn't getting viewers before, and now it looks even worse. Keep in mind: Almost everyone except AT&T kept everything as-is. Same channel number, same tier level of service, just swapped the signal. So people know it's there on the lineup.
If it took AJAM this long to get Verizon on board, it's not too promising. I hardly think Verizon lost a slew of FiOS subscribers by not carrying them from the beginning, especially given their primary market is NYC.
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jeremy1069fm
Scholar
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125 Messages
10 years ago
It's actually quite a decent network.
Al Jazeera English is a completely different network. Yes, they carry the same name but Al Jazeera English is a global news network operating out of Doha. They streamed on the internet, and still do. No cable systems really wanted to carry it, for that reason. Some did, some did not. I don't believe they marketed it too much.
When they bought Current TV, the point was to use that network to get carriage on existing systems without having to coax the cable systems to add an additional channel. They'd simply be running on an existing feed. Some did not want to, others went with it. AT&T dropped out at the last minute. Time Warner cut Current TV in Early 2013 after the news of the sale, but went ahead and added it back late last year.
Al Jazeera America, unlike Al Jazeera English focuses on the United States, and operates out of the United States and has programming created in and aimed at the United States. That includes live news headlines every hour. They also run a few newscasts from Al Jazeera English, which offers news which focuses mostly on Europe and the Middle East.
For the systems that already carried Current TV, it was only available in Standard Definition because that network (the former Newsworld International) was a Standard Definition feed.
Time Warner, among others that added it got the whole package. Your SD feed. Your HD feed. And the internet stream of the network in HD for their mobile apps (Like the U-Verse TV app for example) and the Live TV feature on the website.
It's now available on DirecTV, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Verizon and Google among others.
The real thing holding this up is the court case. Al Jazeera took AT&T to court for dropping out at the last minute. Now they're playing around, because the judge wants specific parts of case to be opened up and neither Al Jazeera or AT&T want anybody else to see it.
AT&T already carries their sister networks BeIn Sport, BeIn Sport Spanish in both SD and HD and on the mobile platforms. If they can settle out of court (which I hope they will) and add the network, AT&T will get the SD, HD feeds of the network as well as streaming on the mobile platform. It's an open stream. You don't have to be on your home network to watch it unlike most of the other networks.
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vid30jk
Scholar
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129 Messages
10 years ago
OK, a few things I got a little mixed up.
If you read the AJE Wikipedia entry, you are left scratching your head over why, exactly, did they need to have AJAM if AJE is available all over the world already. And then you come to the "Controversy" discussion. So, really, the only reason AJAM was started was to assuage critics of AJE, and to lend a bit more legitimacy by them being able to say, "Oh no, we're different because we cover things from the US." Sort of like CNN saying to Europeans, "CNN International isn't really like the US version of CNN because we have a London bureau we broadcast stuff from." It's all part of the same hydra.
Can honestly say that even though BBC World News is now available, after watching a few times, the thrill is gone. If there is something big happening in Europe or the UK itself, I'd tune in. I'd venture a guess that a few people would do the same if some big Middle East story was happening and AJAM was available. But outside of those situations, most would continue to breeze past.
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CostaMesaCAGuy
Scholar
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223 Messages
10 years ago
The next time you request a certain channel be added, I'll ask you the same question.
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CostaMesaCAGuy
Scholar
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223 Messages
10 years ago
Don't assume that most subscribers only want to watch what you want to watch.
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dhascall
Master
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9.8K Messages
10 years ago
It's called choice. The more options the better, the less the worse. Just how I look at it.
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