International Law

Al Jazeera English is looking to expand its reach and gain access to the US market:

The English-language offshoot of Al Jazeera, the Arabic television news network, is pushing for a "breakthrough" that would make the channel available to American TV viewers and help it move beyond a turbulent start-up phase, according to its new managing director, Tony Burman.

The hiring of Burman, a former editor in chief of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, was announced last week by Al Jazeera English, whose first year and a half of broadcasting has been marked by intense scrutiny of the coverage and the recent defection of several high-profile Western journalists who had been recruited to lend credibility to the channel.

Al Jazeera English, which is part of Al Jazeera Network, based in Qatar, also announced distribution agreements last week in markets as far-flung as Portugal, Ukraine and Vietnam, increasing its potential audience to 110 million homes. Conspicuously absent, however, was the United States, where Al Jazeera is still largely unavailable on television. Viewers can watch it on the Web through a deal with YouTube, the online video service.

In a U.S. market of 300 million people, with hundreds of pay-television services, "the idea that certain channels would effectively be banned is medieval," Burman said.

Al Jazeera English is not actually banned, of course, but the reputation of its Arabic sibling as the preferred outlet for videos from Osama bin Laden has made the English-language version too hot to handle for some U.S. cable operators. A lack of space on crowded cable systems has also made it difficult for operators to offer Al Jazeera English.

... Burman said Al Jazeera also planned to invest in new bureaus; it already shares more than 60 bureaus with its Arabic sister organization. And the channel plans "more provocative" current affairs programming and investigative journalism, he said.

"Our goal is to go in the opposite direction to so many other news organizations which are, sadly, cutting back on their coverage of the world," said Burman, who left the Canadian public broadcaster last year.

In an effort to control costs, he said, there will be more collaboration between the Arabic and English services, with news crews sharing equipment, for example. Burman insisted that the channels would still be able to keep separate identities.

"The reality is that Al Jazeera and Al Jazeera English are two different channels that cater to different audiences," he said.

Read more here (from the International Herald Tribune).  I've blogged before about the disappointing unavailability of Al Jazeera in Australia (see here and here) but this reports makes me hope that Foxtel will reconsider its position and offer Al Jazeera to Australian households.