Al Jazeera Gains Popularity on YouTube

In an August 13, 2007 article on the Los Angeles Times website [1], Financial Times writer Edward Luce examines the popularity of Arabic TV news channel Al Jazeera on YouTube.  

Luce writes:

Ignored or shunned by almost every cable TV provider in the U.S., the Al Jazeera English news channel has turned to the Internet to reach American viewers.

Since April, when Al Jazeera struck a distribution deal with YouTube, the popular video site owned by Google Inc., the channel has received 2 million hits and on one day last month was ranked first, ahead of Paris Hilton and other staple fare.

Described by Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former Defense secretary, as a "mouthpiece of Al Qaeda," the Arabic channel's English-language offspring was given a hostile reception in the U.S. when it started broadcasting in November.

Only two cable providers, Buckeye CableSystem, which reaches 147,000 homes in northern Ohio, and a small municipal service in Burlington, Vt., that is piped to just 1,000 homes, have so far agreed to offer it to their subscribers.

Al Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, is also available on the Pentagon's closed-circuit television system for troops and officials. But the main cable providers, such as Time Warner and Comcast Corp., have avoided it.

"America is fighting a war and Al Jazeera works for the enemy," says Cliff Kinkaid, the president of Accuracy in Media, a conservative watchdog that has campaigned against the channel. "Would Buckeye CableSystems have broadcast Tokyo Rose [an anti-American propagandist] during World War II? I don't see any difference."

Allan Block, the owner of Buckeye, dismisses such criticism as "lunatic ranting." He also points out that he voted for George W. Bush in 2000. "I have received threats and abuse, mostly from people living in the Bible Belt and almost none of them from Ohio," Block says.

"They claim I'm carrying a terrorist channel which broadcasts beheadings. But anyone who has watched Al Jazeera realizes it's a balanced and professional channel that gives people diverse perspectives on international events. And it doesn't show beheadings..."

Click here for Luce's article in its entirety on the Los Angeles Times website. [2]