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Al Jazeera America is Running Out of People to Fire
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On March 21, 2015 @ 1:25 pm In The Point | 6 Comments
What do you get when you combine Al Gore’s low performing lefty MSNBC alternative news channel with an oil state that sponsors terrorism? The answer is a cable news channel that even fewer people watch.
Struggling Al Jazeera America is cutting jobs and replacing most of its daytime lineup with an overseas news feed in its latest reshuffling.
The cable outfit told staff on Friday it’s canceling both its morning news report and “Consider This with Antonio Mora” at 11 a.m. It’s also scrapping its 4 p.m. news hour and pushing its 6 p.m. coverage an hour later to 7 p.m.
In addition, Ali Velshi, the host of “Real Money with Ali Velshi,” and Joie Chen’s “America Tonight” are looking at less airtime — either shorter shows or fewer days per week.
Velshi’s show was the only one that anyone actually watched. And by anyone, I mean 16,000 people. I would check, but it’s not worth bothering even for the schadenfreude. Suffice it to say that no one watches Al Jazeera. And now it’s cutting airtime for the only show anyone did watch.
Al Jazeera America has plugged much of the day with a news feed from its overseas sibling, Al Jazeera English, sources said.
That’s a prelude to killing original programming, period.
It’s probably a sensible approach. Qatar’s money isn’t unlimited, especially now that the Saudis are forcing the price of oil down. If no one is watching, then Qatar can just run the same old Al Jazeera feed without being too worried about content. The brand is still there and as long as they have a show or two around where politicians get interviewed, they can keep the illusion that they have a news network.
But they don’t.
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