http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/01/02/al-jazeera-current-tv-al-gore/1805685/Al-Jazeera, the Pan-Arab news channel that struggled to win space on American cable television, has acquired Current TV, boosting its reach 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 shared 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."
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Al-Jazeera has long struggled to get carriage in the U.S., and the deal suffered an immediate casualty as Time Warner Cable, the nation's second-largest cable TV operator, announced it would drop 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.
Prior to Al-Jazeera's purchase, Current TV was in 60 million homes. It is carried by Comcast, which owned less than a 10% stake in Current TV, as well as DirecTV. Neither company announced plans to drop the channel.
It's a shame you have Time Warner being cowards and dropping it right away do to the possibility of some backlash.
Personally, I'm happy about this and I hope it's successful. I'd love to see Fox and CNN get some competition. However, on the internet, there'll be a series of "OMG the liberals sold out to the terrorists just like we said they'd do." Though it'd likely have more misspellings.