Al Jazeera to switch off TV in US by April

Cable news channel Al Jazeera America, which debuted in 2013 to great fanfare when it promised to cover American news soberly and seriously, will be shutting down by the end of April. The move was announced at a companywide meeting on Wednesday.

In a memo to the staff, Al Jazeera America's chief executive, Al Anstey, said the "decision by Al Jazeera America's board is driven by the fact that our business model is simply not sustainable in light of the economic challenges in the US media marketplace."

"I know the closure of AJAM will be a massive disappointment for everyone here who has worked tirelessly for our long-term future," he continued, using the company acronym. "The decision that has been made is in no way because AJAM has done anything but a great job. Our commitment to great journalism is unrivaled."

At the companywide meeting, staff members, some in tears, were told that the decision to shutter the network had not been unanimous. Some of the channel's leadership argued that the network provided an important service, and continued to win awards for its coverage. But in the end, the decision was an economic one. The channel, it was felt, had fallen victim to the lack of a business model beyond continuous support from Qatar, the energy-rich country that owns Al Jazeera.

Some staffers saw that as a tacit admission that falling oil prices were behind the closure, though a spokeswoman for the company denied that on Wednesday. Beyond its oil wealth, Qatar is one of the world's top exporters of liquefied natural gas, whose price has also tumbled.

Anstey said that once the cable news network shuts down by April 30, Al Jazeera would expand its digital presence in the US. The expansion "would bring new global content into America."

Al Jazeera America went on the air in August 2013 after Al Jazeera bought Al Gore's Current TV for $500 million. It promised to be thoughtful and smart, free of the shouting arguments that have defined cable news in the US over the last decade. But meaningful viewership never came, with prime-time ratings struggling to exceed 30,000 viewers.

To make matters worse, turmoil hit the newsroom last year when staff members complained bitterly of a culture of fear. There was an exodus of top executives, along with a pair of lawsuits from former employees that included complaints about sexism and anti-Semitism at the news channel.

In May, Ehab Al Shihabi, the chief executive of Al Jazeera America, was replaced by Anstey. Morale improved, but ratings remained low. The closure, which will cost hundreds of employees their jobs, highlights the difficulties of establishing a robust cable news presence in an increasingly crowded media marketplace, and one that faces ever more competition from the web - the ultimate 24-hour news medium.

Current TV, before being bought by Al Jazeera, had struggled for years to find an audience, and to define its place in the news landscape. Fusion, a cable news network and digital publication aimed at younger audiences, lost the backing of one of its corporate parent companies, Disney, in recent weeks, following reports that it, too, had struggled to find its footing with audiences. Even established players like MSNBC have been forced to revamp in recent years.

Andrew Heyward, a former president of CBS News and now an adviser to media firms, said in an interview that Al Jazeera America had faced an uphill battle from the beginning.

Cable news "is a very well-served market, not to say saturated, and you have three powerful, well-established players," he said, referring to Fox News, MSNBC and CNN. "It's not quite clear that the world was waiting for a new 24-hour cable channel in the US," he said, describing the limited distribution the channel received.

© 2015 The New York Times News Service