Why Al-Jazeera is buying Current TV

It's not easy being Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-backed pan-Arab news broadcaster -- and its fortunes might not see a big turnaround with its purchase of Al Gore's Current TV. 

The English-language version of the network has struggled to find a foothold in the U.S., with only a sprinkling of American cities airing the channel. (My own town -- Burlington, Vt. -- is one of the few where viewers can find it on the local cable network, but more about that later.)

Al-Jazeera, which is reportedly paying $500 million, will shut down Current's programming and start a new English-language channel via Current's distribution of more than 60 million homes.

But Al-Jazeera's plans aren't likely to play out that smoothly. On Wednesday night -- just hours after the news broke -- Time Warner Cable (TWC) pulled Current TV's programming, cutting off access to 12 million homes. Viewers were treated to an on-screen message alerting them that the channel "is no longer available on Time Warner Cable," reports the Huffington Post.

"One of Current’s distributors, Time Warner Cable, did not consent to the sale to Al-Jazeera," wrote Current TV co-founder Joel Hyatt in a memo to employees. "Consequently, Current will no longer be carried on TWC. This is unfortunate, but I am confident that Al-Jazeera America will earn significant additional carriage in the months and years ahead."

Politics have played a part in Al-Jazeera's struggle to gain American viewers. The network's Arabic-language channel drew condemnations a decade ago for airing Al Qaeda members and sympathizers, notes the New York Times, and many U.S. cable companies refused to carry the network.

"There are still people who will not watch it, who will say that it's a 'terrorist network,'" Philip Seib, the author of "The Al Jazeera Effect," told the Times. "Al-Jazeera has to override that by providing quality news."

Others have sought Current before, including conservative personality Glenn Beck. His TheBlaze site approached Current last year, the Wall Street Journal reported, but Current executives responded by saying "the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view."

Current TV's shabby ratings are another hurdle for Al-Jazeera. The network, which put itself up for sale last year, reportedly struggled to find a buyer given its low average viewership of 35,000. By comparison, Fox News drew an average of 2.1 million primetime total viewers in 2012. 

In my town of Burlington -- a small city of about 40,000 residents known for its liberal attitudes -- Al-Jazeera English was the focus of a 2008 controversy when the city-backed Burlington Telecom decided to pull the network from its lineup. After a community backlash over free speech, the cable operator backed off the plan. 

Getting such grassroots support isn't easy. The broadcaster aims to bypass the pay-TV gatekeepers through Current TV's previous carriage deals, but if Al-Jazeera's new network sheds viewers from an already low base, other pay-TV distributors could follow in Time Warner Cable's footsteps.

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