Media Decoder Blog: Al Jazeera Hires First Anchor for New U.S. Channel

Al Jazeera on Thursday hired its first new anchor, Ali Velshi of CNN, for its forthcoming cable channel in the United States, and confirmed that the channel would be called Al Jazeera America.

Mr. Velshi, currently the chief business correspondent and an anchor for CNN, will host a half-hour business program in prime time once the new channel replaces Current TV. Neither he nor a spokesman for the channel said they knew exactly when the channel would start, but the transition is expected to happen later this year.

Mr. Velshi said in a telephone interview that he “was really struck by their commitment to building a strong news organization.” When asked whether he was concerned about aligning himself with the Al Jazeera brand name, he indicated that he was not.

“I think the product will trump any preconceived notions that people may have going into it,” he said. “They’re very determined for this brand to make an impact and for this brand to be a meaningful provider of news.”

In many parts of the world Al Jazeera, owned by the emir of Qatar, is already a force to be reckoned with. The Al Jazeera Media Network operates Arabic and English-language international news channels as well as a growing number of niche channels. But in the United States it has very little viewership because cable and satellite companies have, for the most part, declined to carry its channels.

In January, Al Jazeera bought its way into the country by acquiring Current TV, the channel co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, for an estimated $500 million.

Al Jazeera opted not to use the channel space to simulcast Al Jazeera English; instead, it announced that it would set up a new channel specifically for the United States, and that about 40 percent of the programming would come from New York and other cities in the United States. (The remaining 60 percent, it said, would come from Al Jazeera English, whose headquarters are in Doha, the Qatari capital.) It said that the tentative name was Al Jazeera America, and seemed to confirm that on Thursday by setting up promotional accounts for the channel on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

“Over the coming weeks, we’ll be making announcements about talent, programming and bureau locations across the United States,” the channel’s announcement on Tumblr stated.

Mr. Velshi is the first boldface name to be announced. He said he anticipated others would be announced soon, but did not know who because his talks with the channel took place in secret. Referring to Al Jazeera’s public estimate that it received 18,000 job applications for the 170 positions it advertised last winter, he said, “This is the first big journalism hiring binge that anyone’s been on for a long time.”

Mr. Velshi’s plan to leave CNN was announced internally earlier this week. He has spent the last 12 years at the network, initially as an anchor for the now-defunct business news channel CNNfn. He was a fixture on CNN during the financial crisis in 2008; more recently he tried his hand at morning and evening anchoring, but was passed over for permanent positions at either time of day.

For the past year he has anchored a daily newscast, “World Business Today,” for CNN’s international news channel, and a weekly personal finance program, “Your Money,” for CNN’s flagship American channel.

Jeff Zucker, the new president of CNN Worldwide, has been making sweeping changes to the flagship channel lately, but Mr. Velshi indicated that he was leaving of his own volition.

He said he was content at CNN, but as an anchor and correspondent there, “you’re limited because it’s a big company.” Al Jazeera America, on the other hand, is something that “we’re starting from scratch.”

“I wanted to be somewhere where there’s a real challenge to build the audience, to build the infrastructure, the whole thing,” he said.

Al Jazeera said in a news release that Mr. Velshi’s half-hour program would have a magazine format. It will initially begin as a weekly program, but “is expected to move to a five-days-a-week schedule by year’s end,” the channel said.

Ehab al-Shihabi, the executive director of Al Jazeera international operations, said in a statement, “We are thrilled to secure Ali’s extraordinary talents and services. Al Jazeera America will be bringing respected, independent reporting to its viewers and that’s exactly the type of coverage Ali Velshi is known for.”

Representatives of Al Jazeera have previously said that they expect the new channel to be available in roughly 40 million homes in the United States when it has its premiere. About 100 million homes subscribe to cable or satellite service.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/al-jazeera-hires-first-anchor-for-new-u-s-channel/?partner=rss&emc=rss