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Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

nytimes.com

201–210 of 301 posts

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever people talk about the money in college football right now, I generally tell them to blame Tivo (and subsequently Netflix). Tivo started it with the ability to record and watch later while fast forwarding through commercials. Netflix with it's mountains of commercial free content followed next. That put a huge advertising premium on content that people NEED to watch live like sports or hit shows like Walking…

> The reality for cord cutters and cable companies alike is that, if it weren't for ESPN I'd have no reason to have cable. It's the only reason I have a pay TV package. During college football season I got a Sling subscription solely to watch college football (ESPN and the SEC Network mostly). I never even really used the Sling app much - it's terrible, crashes a lot, and isn't on AppleTV. I just used my Sling accoun…

> an unbundled or streaming subscriber would need to pay $36 a month for ESPN access for them to generate the same revenue they generate through current cable carriage contracts

That subscriber will be worth a lot more once they can be targeted with individually personalized marketing content based on previous TV-watching habits, augmented with third-party data from other digital channels, web browsing history, purchasing history, etc. It's coming; YouTube proves it can be done. It's only a matter of time before we see different business models for the monetization of streaming content on more 'traditional' TV channels as well.

The alternative is a subscription model that would price out many sports fans, or obsolescence followed by slow death for want of revenue.

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Moving away from service chord cutters at this point was just odd. Embracing alternative media has done wonders for outlets like Russia Today (Though that's state sponsored so it might not be the best comparison).

> Russia Today (Though that's state sponsored so it might not be the best comparison) Al Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar. However, I agree with you that it's not a good comparision. BBC also is state sponsored, but generally considered to be trustworthy. RT is propaganda run by a government that has propaganda as its modus operendi; I wouldn't trust their weather reports.

Careful, don't poke the Russian internet troll war machine. Before you know it, this thread will be filled with posts from users with no posting history defending Russia Today's journalistic integrity and/or slighting that of US networks.

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russia Today (Though that's state sponsored so it might not be the best comparison) Al Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar. However, I agree with you that it's not a good comparision. BBC also is state sponsored, but generally considered to be trustworthy. RT is propaganda run by a government that has propaganda as its modus operendi; I wouldn't trust their weather reports.

> RT is propaganda run by a government that has propaganda as its modus operendi; I wouldn't trust their weather reports. So like NBC nightly news? The US is full of what can only be described as US government propaganda, 60 minutes is a prime example. CBS and NBC are no better than RT unfortunately, they just often tell Americans what they want to hear so nobody bats an eyelid. AJ and BBC have their biases but at le…

Remember, there's a special name for the type of reporting journalists do when they aren't just copying & pasting government and corporate press releases in their news stories: "investigative journalism."

Anything else is just reporting publicly-available information from some official source.

Notice that that's also the first line item to get slashed when budget-cuttin' time rolls around.

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#204
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a saying.. We in the USA have one party, the Business Party, with two right wings. The Democrat-Republican spectrum spans the spectrum of opinion that is fundable by the business community. There is plenty of vigorous debate within that spectrum. But money wins elections and funds advertising-dependent media, so that's how non business friendly perspectives get filtered out. It's not a conspiracy, it's more…

If money wins elections, can you explain why Jeb Bush isn't polling first in the Republican primary process right now? Can you also explain why Bernie Sanders is within single digits of Clinton nationally, and beating her in Iowa and New Hampshire? You'd expect that the candidates who spend the most (and represent the monied establishment) would do the best, right? Is it possible that there are other forces at play (…

Those are not election wins. We are not even close to the peak of the election cycle where the real money gets spent. There certainly are more forces at play, but money plays the key role.

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Moving away from service chord cutters at this point was just odd. Embracing alternative media has done wonders for outlets like Russia Today (Though that's state sponsored so it might not be the best comparison).

> Russia Today (Though that's state sponsored so it might not be the best comparison) Al Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar. However, I agree with you that it's not a good comparision. BBC also is state sponsored, but generally considered to be trustworthy. RT is propaganda run by a government that has propaganda as its modus operendi; I wouldn't trust their weather reports.

> considered to be trustworthy

By who, please, people who don't watch the BBC? The BBC has been in opposition to the UK government once in living memory, back in 2003, and it's still being talked about.

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Pajero is called Montero in several countries, which include the Spanish-speaking ones.

Of note: it is called Pajero in Brazil, which is a Portuguese speaking country. I wonder what happens when someone crosses the border (any border) with it.

Pajero is not a Portuguese word. People that speech Spanish may smile at it and Nova, but we have plenty of jokes about Kia's BestA, that means both beast, stupid or arrogant.

Anyway, BestA sold pretty well here.

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> RT is propaganda run by a government that has propaganda as its modus operendi; I wouldn't trust their weather reports. So like NBC nightly news? The US is full of what can only be described as US government propaganda, 60 minutes is a prime example. CBS and NBC are no better than RT unfortunately, they just often tell Americans what they want to hear so nobody bats an eyelid. AJ and BBC have their biases but at le…

I don't know a good way to prove that US media is not a government mouthpiece, but I don't think there is much evidence to support such a strong claim, whereas it is pretty easy to argue that RT is a government mouthpiece. EG: http://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/12/the-truth-about-russia-to...

The news media in the US isn't a "government mouthpiece", but there is definitely East Coast government-media-academia axis which considers itself "elite" and has common goals. To have the wrong opinions is bad for your career.

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#208
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> RT is propaganda run by a government that has propaganda as its modus operendi; I wouldn't trust their weather reports. So like NBC nightly news? The US is full of what can only be described as US government propaganda, 60 minutes is a prime example. CBS and NBC are no better than RT unfortunately, they just often tell Americans what they want to hear so nobody bats an eyelid. AJ and BBC have their biases but at le…

Remember, there's a special name for the type of reporting journalists do when they aren't just copying & pasting government and corporate press releases in their news stories: "investigative journalism." Anything else is just reporting publicly-available information from some official source. Notice that that's also the first line item to get slashed when budget-cuttin' time rolls around.

Perhaps there is a happy middle which doesn't cost an arm and a leg to produce a report, and still isn't straight-up propaganda. It's called reporting publicly-available information from multiple credible sources, and not reporting single-sourced PR releases. Also known as "journalism". I heard somewhere that it was essential to the nature of a free state.

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#209
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> RT is propaganda run by a government that has propaganda as its modus operendi; I wouldn't trust their weather reports. So like NBC nightly news? The US is full of what can only be described as US government propaganda, 60 minutes is a prime example. CBS and NBC are no better than RT unfortunately, they just often tell Americans what they want to hear so nobody bats an eyelid. AJ and BBC have their biases but at le…

Remember, there's a special name for the type of reporting journalists do when they aren't just copying & pasting government and corporate press releases in their news stories: "investigative journalism." Anything else is just reporting publicly-available information from some official source. Notice that that's also the first line item to get slashed when budget-cuttin' time rolls around.

[deleted]

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#210
post #182
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's pretty good evidence that lots of American media outlets are government mouthpieces - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent for example

That book argues that mass media are biased because they are beholden to for-profit corporations, advertisers, and large-entity sourcing. I didn't read it, that's just in the outline that's in the link you provided. I think Noam would prefer if they were government mouthpieces instead of corporate mouthpieces, as he's socialist. Regardless, I don't think "Noam Chomsky wrote a book" is an argument with evidence. It's…

Suggestion: try reading on stuff you want to critique before commenting about them instead spouting malformed ideas that you patched up from internet comments, Facebook posts and other distortion prone medium. People who do read up on stuff can clearly see you don't know what you're talking about.
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