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Al Jazeera America circling the bowl
Via FrontPagemag's better writers, Daniel Greenfield

By comparison, BorderlandBeat.com, to which Ranturg.com is loosely associated, draws 6,000 readers daily.

Cable channel Al Jazeera America, which launched less than a year ago, is slashing expenses and laying off staff as it struggles to gain a foothold in the US.

"They're not making their numbers or the revenue they thought," said a source. "They have a really convoluted background of people in from Qatar [headquarters]. They really don't get the US market."

Al Jazeera America is averaging just 15,000 total viewers, roughly half those who tuned in to its predecessor, Current TV, according to Nielsen figures.

The channel draws fewer than 6,000 viewers in the 25-to-54-year-old target audience for news.

Thanks to the deep pockets of the owners, Al Jazeera America spent freely in a bid to challenge its all-news TV competition.

It hired 800 journalists, including former ABC news-gathering chief Kate O'Brian, and blanketed the US with a dozen bureaus.
Posted by: badanov 2014-04-14
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=389251