Coming to a television near you, maybe

In some countries, it has more credibility than CNN. It has world-class reporters posted around the globe and covers stories that other mainstream media don’t. Over the years, Al Jazeera English has established itself as a professional television news channel, broadcast in more than 100 countries.

Al Jazeera English employs staff from more than 50 nationalities, making it the most diverse newsroom in the world.

So where is Al Jazeera English in Canada?

The 24-hour international news channel applied for a broadcasting licence more than a year ago. This summer it is opening its first Canadian bureau in Toronto.

Last November, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, granted the licence and added AJE to the list of available digital channels.

This means it’s up to Canadian cable and satellite companies to decide whether they want to carry the channel and offer it to their customers.

Some news reports predicted AJE would become available for Canadians to watch on television by February. To date though, the main Canadian cable and satellite distributors don't carry the channel.

Representatives from Bell Canada, Rogers and Videotron refused to comment on the status of AJE, saying they don’t release any information until they are ready to launch a service.

During AJE’s application process, the CRTC received more than 2,600 comments from Canadians supporting the news channel, and only 40 opposing it.

Slava Levin, the CEO of Ethnic Channels Group Ltd. which sponsored AJE’s application, says that “just these interventions alone prove that there is [a big demand for AJE in Canada]. We received so many.”

A growing influence

AJE was launched in 2006 as a branch of the Al Jazeera Network, based in Doha, Qatar. It became the first English channel broadcast from the Middle East and now reaches 180 million households over 6 continents.

Al Jazeera prides itself on ensuring marginalized voices are heard on its network.

It has hired some of the biggest names in television news, many of those former employees of the BBC and CNN. With bureaus in Senegal, Russia, India and Washington, AJE “aims to balance the information flow between the South and the North.”

Nick Spicer, a former Moscow correspondent for the CBC, left that job two years ago to join the AJE newsroom in Washington. He says the advantage of AJE is the fact that its correspondents actually speak the language and share the culture of the people around them.

According to Spicer, the news channel tends to do the kind of stories that mainstream media don’t necessarily cover, giving “a voice to the voiceless.”

For example, he describes a story he recently did, which explored problems in the U.S. system of government-funded defense lawyers. “[The system is] being shaken up by the economic recession, and we have lots of people going needlessly to jail because the defense lawyers are overworked.”

He adds that his job involves spending a lot of time talking to people who are not usually in front of TV cameras and “people who are disenfranchised in some way.”

In many parts of the world, AJE has become the go-to network when it comes to international news.

Alan Martin, former foreign correspondent for Maclean's magazine, has reported extensively from countries in the global South. He says in Africa for example, people will see AJE as having more legitimacy than other mainstream western media like CNN.

“There is a sort of suspicion over western powers and western media,” he says.

...I’m not sure there’s enough of an audience in Canada to watch a kind of third-world view of international issues

Al Jazeera’s reputation

The whole Al Jazeera Network, like its AJE branch, has been growing in influence and popularity. It also plays an important role in political liberalization, being a conduit for political discussion in many countries, Martin says.

Nonetheless, breaking through in North America has proven to be challenging for the network. Its 24-hour Arabic news service stirred up a storm amongst certain Jewish groups when it applied for a CRTC license in 2003.

At that time, the CRTC received about 1,200 comments from the public, almost half of those opposing the addition of the Arabic news channel. These comments outlined concerns over the channel’s reputation for broadcasting hate propaganda targeting Jewish people.

Aliaa Dakroury, a human rights professor at Carleton University who has written about Al Jazeera, agrees some of the Arabic channel’s talk shows have sometimes bordered on hate speech.

AJE broadcasts from four cities: Doha, Washington, Kuala Lumpur and London.

However, she stresses that its English sister channel, AJE, is very different.

“Al Jazeera English is for the first time targeting the English audience, so they are not customizing their programming to satisfy Arabs. They want to pass as a professional news agency, like Reuters or Associated Press.”

Dakroury says she thinks this distinction contributed to the CRTC giving a full licence to AJE, while it only gave a conditional one to the Arabic channel.

A question of time?

It’s uncertain whether any cable or satellite company will eventually offer AJE in Canada.

Elly Alboim, former parliamentary bureau chief for CBC television, says it will depend if enough people want to buy the channel to justify carrying it.

“I myself don’t see it, not so much because of hostility towards [the channel], but because I’m not sure there’s enough of an audience in Canada to watch a kind of third-world view of international issues,” he says.

He points out that CBC’s national news network only captures about two per cent of available television audience in Canada, while CNN captures less than one per cent.

Until it becomes available by cable or satellite, Canadians will have to catch AJE on the web.

AJE on the web

Though Al Jazeera English isn't available on traditional cable or satellite networks in Canada, it is offered by NexTV, an Internet protocol television provider.

The station is part of NexTV's must-carry packaging, which means after you subscribe to one of the company's channel packages you receive AJE for free. All you need is a set-top box and a high speed Internet connection for the signal to go to your television.

The goal of NexTV is to bring a large variety of international channels to Canadians of various ethnic backgrounds. It is a division of Ethnic Channels Group Ltd., a company that sponsored AJE's application to the CRTC.

AJE is also available on Livestation.com, YouTube and the AJE website.

Sources: NexTV and Ethnic Channels Group Ltd.

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