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| Al Gore is catching flack for getting a huge payday. Current TV is being sold to Al-Jazeera Worldwide and the network will finally break into the United States with groundbreaking coverage. |
Former Vice President of The United States, Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Al Gore, once again puts himself in the news for all the wrong reasons. Today, the former vice president attracts not only outrage from the conservatives but the liberals as well.
Gore became a media mogul in the late 2000s when he and Joel Hyatt created Current TV. The network revamped its image last year with the addition of commentators who represented the progressive movement.
Well as of today, it's confirmed that Current TV was sold to Al-Jezeera, a Qatar based network that covers international news and politics in the United States. The network will revamp its image and purge itself of likely most of the staff.
Liberal agitators such as Cenk Uygur, Bill Press, David Shuster, Stephanie Miller, John Feuglsang, Joy Behar, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, were eager to jump into Current TV after the network had bumped off its former star Keith Olbermann.
Olbermann, the once mighty voice of MSNBC abruptly left the network after conflict with the network president and took an opportunity to join the Current TV staff. For at least one year, Olbermann brought his Countdown program with the same themes and unique stamina. But that all turned sour when Current fired him and they're feuding in court over a contractual agreement.
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| Keith Olbermann short tenure with Current TV went sour after nearly a year on the air. |
Current TV staff, program hosts and cable subscribers were caught off guard by the decision.
The network prompted itself as the alternative to "MSNBC" and "Fox News". Unfortunately many cable subscribers couldn't get it on their regular lineups. Time Warner Cable, the nation's second largest cable provider has pulled the plug on Current TV after it learned that Al-Jazeera was moving in. The cable company attracted controversy for the pull and now its considering to add the news network to its lineup.
Fox News is the sworn enemy of President Barack Obama, former president Bill Clinton and Gore. The conservative news network wasted no time attacking the decision for Gore to sell his network.
Many of the commentators, one being the serial annoyance Sean Hannity were eager to attack Gore for allowing the sale of the network go forth. He went on to criticize Gore for being an advocate of the environment but he's willing to sell out for the oil rich nation of Qatar.
Bill O'Reilly was the most harshest of the commentators. Mediaite obtained the portion of The O'Reilly Factor in which the serial agitator blasted Gore for hypocrisy. O’Reilly took issue with Gore’s hypocrisy in trying to finalize the sale before the fiscal cliff deadline this past Monday night to avoid paying higher taxes, as well as doing a deal with “anti-Americans” at Al Jazeera. O’Reilly declared that Gore has “shamed himself” with the deal.
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| Stephanie Miller, a liberal talk host on Current TV. |
Many conservatives believe that Al-Jazeera is "anti-American" for promoting terrorists videos, graphic images of victims, and hostile leaders criticizing the United States. Others consider the network very balanced in their coverage.
Al-Jazeera is by far one of the world's leading news organizations. They've covered news that most networks such as CNN, MSNBC and Fox News refuse to cover. While Fox News and MSNBC rank as the nation's largest cable news companies, these networks fear Al-Jazeera approach to the news will shape the opinion of the nation. So by Al-Jazeera jumping into the fray, one could think this will shake up things.
Now liberals are kind of mad that Al Gore would hire these commentators to host programs on the network and then give them the news that their jobs may be lost after the deal.
Stephanie Miller in particular is the 10th most listened radio host in the country. Her show Talking Liberally, comes forth through The Stephanie Miller Show, a nationally syndicated morning show. Miller, a comedian and liberal agitator is one of the fixtures of the network. Her radio show competes with conservative agitators Laura Ingraham and Glenn Beck. Ingraham and Beck are ranked the 4th and 5th most listened to in the nation respectfully.
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| Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks. |
Eliot Spitzer was the former governor of New York embedded in a sex scandal. He left abruptly the governorship. He went on to host a program with Kathleen Parker on CNN. When Parker left after a few months, Spitzer took over and ran his program. With CNN's ratings down and the MSNBC and it's ratings of Rachel Madow, Al Sharpton, Ed Schultz, Lawrence O'Donnell improving, CNN let Spitzer go. They replace his show with Anderson Cooper. Spitzer replaces Keith Olbermann after he got into it with Current TV staff.
Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan came into the limelight after a passionate speech in favor of President Barack Obama. She was granted her own program and garnered positive reviews. Now that's uncertain where she'll go but it's likely ABC News since she rose to fame after she left Lansing, Michigan.
Bill Press is the morning host who features his program out of Washington, DC. He hosted The Bill Press Show on Current TV as the Full Court Press. Press is formerly a host on CNN's Crossfire. Press has filled in for MSNBC hosts before he went on Current TV.
Cenk Ugyur is also another fixture to Current TV. He is the host of The Young Turks, a daily program that runs concurrently on the internet and the network. Like Olbermann, Uygur had issues with the direction of MSNBC. He was angered by the decision to put Al Sharpton into his 6pm. When the network refused to hear him out, Uygur left the network. He began hosting The Young Turks on Current TV at 7pm. Uygur brings TYT to the nation. The program also has a YouTube channel which features some of the shows best interviews.
Their futures with Al-Jazeera America is uncertain but it's likely they'll be purged upon the change.
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| Eliot Spitzer joined Current TV in 2011. |
The Associated Press reports that Al-Jazeera, the Pan-Arab news channel that struggled to win space on American cable television, has acquired Current TV, boosting its reach in the U.S. nearly ninefold to about 40 million homes. With a focus on U.S. news, it plans to rebrand the left-leaning news network that co-founder Al Gore couldn't make relevant.
The former vice president confirmed the sale Wednesday, saying in a statement that Al-Jazeera shares Current TV's mission "to give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to provide independent and diverse points of view; and to tell the stories that no one else is telling."
The acquisition lifts Al-Jazeera's reach beyond a few large U.S. metropolitan areas including New York and Washington, where about 4.7 million homes can now watch Al-Jazeera English.
Al-Jazeera, owned by the government of Qatar, plans to gradually transform Current into a network called Al-Jazeera America by adding five to 10 new U.S. bureaus beyond the five it has now and hiring more journalists. More than half of the content will be U.S. news and the network will have its headquarters in New York, spokesman Stan Collender said.
Collender said there are no rules against foreign ownership of a cable channel — unlike the strict rules limiting foreign ownership of free-to-air TV stations. He said the move is based on demand, adding that 40 percent of viewing traffic on Al-Jazeera English's website is from the U.S.
"This is a pure business decision based on recognized demand," Collender said. "When people watch Al-Jazeera, they tend to like it a great deal."
Al-Jazeera has long struggled to get carriage in the U.S., and the deal suffered an immediate casualty as Time Warner Cable Inc., the nation's second-largest cable TV operator, announced it is dropping Current TV due to the deal.
"Our agreement with Current has been terminated and we will no longer be carrying the service. We are removing the service as quickly as possible," the company said in a statement.
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| Jennifer Granholm delivers a passionate speech for President Barack Obama. She hosted The War Room on Current TV. |
Previous to Al-Jazeera's purchase, Current TV was in 60 million homes. It is carried by Comcast Corp., which owned less than a 10 percent stake in Current TV, as well as DirecTV. Neither company announced plans to drop the channel.
In 2010, Al-Jazeera English's managing director, Tony Burman, blamed a "very aggressive hostility" from the Bush administration for reluctance among cable and satellite companies to show the network.
Even so, Al-Jazeera has garnered respect for its ability to build a serious news product in a short time. In a statement announcing the deal, it touted numerous U.S. journalism awards it received in 2012, including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award Grand Prize and the Scripps Howard Award for Television/Cable In-Depth Reporting.
But there may be a culture clash at the network. Dave Marash, a former "Nightline" reporter who worked for Al-Jazeera in Washington, said he left the network in 2008 in part because he sensed an anti-American bias there.
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| Joy Behar is a co-host on ABC's The View. But on weeknights she host her own program on Current TV. |
Current, meanwhile, began as a groundbreaking effort to promote user-generated content. But it has settled into a more conventional format of political talk television with a liberal bent. Gore worked on-air as an analyst during its recent election night coverage.
Its leading personalities are former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and Cenk Uygur, a former political commentator on MSNBC who hosts the show called "The Young Turks." Current signed Keith Olbermann to be its top host in 2011 but his tenure lasted less than a year before it ended in bad blood on both sides.
Current has largely been outflanked by MSNBC in its effort be a liberal alternative to the leading cable news network, Fox News Channel.
Current hired former CNN Washington bureau chief David Bohrman in 2011 to be its president. Bohrman pushed the network to innovate technologically, with election night coverage that emphasized a conversation over social media.
Current TV, founded in 2005 by former vice president Gore and Joel Hyatt, is expected to post $114 million in revenue in 2013, according to research firm SNL Kagan. The firm pegged the network's cash flow at nearly $24 million a year.
