Al Jazeera America
defunct pay television news channel
Al Jazeera America was an American pay television news channel owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network. The channel was launched on August 20, 2013, to compete with CNN, HLN, MSNBC, Fox News, and in certain markets RT America. It was Al Jazeera's second entry into the U.S. television market, after the launch of beIN Sports in 2012. The channel, which had persistently low ratings, announced in January 2016 that it would close in April of that year.
Al Jazeera America was headquartered and run from studios on the first floor of the Manhattan Center in New York City. It also had a total of 12 bureaus located in places such as Washington, D.C., at the channel's D.C. studios at the Newseum and Al Jazeera's D.C. hub, Chicago, Detroit, Nashville, Los Angeles, Seattle, New Orleans, Dallas, Denver, Miami, and San Francisco (former headquarters of Current TV and current headquarters of online channel AJ+).
The channel was the sister channel of Al Jazeera's international English language news channel Al Jazeera English. Although operated and managed completely separately with America's management based in the United States, the two shared United States studios and bureaus, such as the D.C. hub, and Al Jazeera America ran some of Al Jazeera English's programming and many of its live newscasts alongside its own.
History
Creation
The creation of Al Jazeera America was announced on January 2, 2013, along with the announcement that the network had purchased the user-generated content channel turned progressive-oriented pay television channel Current TV, which had long been struggling in the ratings and after two format changes had announced in October 2012 that it was considering a sale of the channel. It was reported that Al Jazeera planned on shutting down Current TV, keeping its production staff and possibly some programs, and using the company's distribution network to broadcast Al Jazeera America.
“Al Jazeera America” enters the record as defunct pay television news channel. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Jazeera, America and defunct can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4704131. VIAF identifies the subject as 14145424516486831462. The Library of Congress control number is no2014150275. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2013, 2012 and 2016.
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This entry incorporates text from “Al Jazeera America” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.