Al Jazeera, the Qatari news service whose coverage of the Arab Spring revolutions has been second to none, has finally come to New York.
From the Times:
In New York City, starting Monday, Al Jazeera English will be simulcast for 23 hours a day on RISE, a cable channel adjunct to WRNN, a broadcast station in suburban New York. RISE had shown a Spanish-language network previously.
RISE is carried by Time Warner Cable (Channel 92) and Verizon FiOS (Channel 466) in New York City. The channel is a product of leverage: when Time Warner Cable wanted to move WRNN from an analog to a digital channel, the station negotiated for a second channel, RISE.
RISE will carry one hour of local programming a day, as it is required to do under its carriage agreements. The other 23 hours it will have Al Jazeera English. Richard E. French Jr., the president of WRNN, said in an interview that he was impressed by Al Jazeera’s extensive news infrastructure, including 70 bureaus.
Despite what you (and Al Jazeera) might think about the station being under an unofficial blacklist from Big Cable, the cable companies tell the Times that they simply didn’t want to give one of the limited number of channels available to a little-watched foreign news service.
Still, here’s a list of 15 channels Time Warner Cable carried before Al Jazeera English:
–Lifetime Movie Network
–Ovation
–CTRC
–WRNN
–WFME, run by Harold Camping’s Family Radio
–Trinity Broadcasting Network
–Chiller
–Zealy
–Discovery Fit and Health
–Fox Soccer Channel
–Great American Country
–The Word Network
–C-SPAN 3
–JWLTV Jewelry Television
–BONTV
