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Pay television providers forced Al Jazeera to remove or block its online video content from American viewers in return for launching its new news channel on cable systems this week.
The Qatar-based news network had maintained a loyal, but small online audience for its English language news programming, using video streaming to reach American audiences that could not watch on cable or telco-TV.
For Time Warner Cable and AT&T U-verse customers, neither of which carry the new Al Jazeera America network, the move effectively cuts off viewing of the news channel’s English language programming.
The removal of Al Jazeera video content began with the termination of its live global English language stream within the United States. That was followed by blocking the network’s video clips on YouTube. The only way for viewers to watch the network now is by paying a cable, telephone, or satellite operator, assuming they are willing to carry it.
AT&T U-verse suddenly dropped predecessor Current TV just hours before Al Jazeera America was scheduled to launch in its place. The loss of five million potential viewers came as a complete surprise, culminating in a lawsuit filed against AT&T for violating its contract.
“Unfortunately, AT&T’s decision to unilaterally delete Al Jazeera America presented us with circumstances that were untenable — an affiliate that has willfully and knowingly breached its contractual obligations,” Al Jazeera America wrote in a statement issued Tuesday night. “Al Jazeera America’s strong hope is to resolve this matter quickly.”
AT&T issued its own statement stating the company “could not reach an agreement with Al Jazeera that we believed provided value for our customers and our business.”
Riyaad Minty, Al Jazeera’s head of social media has fielded complaints from loyal viewers who never got to watch the channel through their pay television provider and now can’t access the network without one. Minty tweeted the network was considering a new online offering within weeks, but it would not include Al Jazeera America.
The news channel is forced to tread carefully because of restrictive terms in its carriage agreements, designed to cut off cord cutters who refuse to pay for cable television. Most cable contracts forbid allowing cable networks to stream their programming online unless they offer it only to those who can prove they already pay an authorized provider.
Time Warner Cable is reportedly still negotiating with the news channel, which usually asks for less than five cents a month per subscriber. But no decision had been reached. Time Warner dropped predecessor network Current TV hours after news stories reported Al Gore, Jr. and other owners had sold the channel to the Qatar news organization.
Wait! Where does blocking certain Internet sites (and that is what this is, isn’t it?) stand in regards to NET NEUTRALITY???
Your ISP is not blocking anything, hence no Net Neutrality violation.
This was a contractual requirement agreed to by Al-Jazeera in order that CABLE companies would carry the A-J CABLE channel. Such horse-trading of channel carriage rights & obligations in contract negotiations goes on all the time.
It has nothing to do with NN.
But they are BLOCKING access to a website (Al Jazeera) – PERIOD!! Now, I do understand your point that this was horse trading, but the PUBLIC should have access to everything on the public Internet.
Yes, such horse-trading goes on – but is the public that suffers (Not that I support A-J at all) but it is just plain WRONG that cable TV providers limit the Internet content based on commercial negotiations on the TV side of the business. What’s next: blocking certain (legal) video streaming sites because it competes with the video side of the business?
Many cable providers already do effectively bock legal video streaming through the use of capped and metered broadband, they effectively make you pay extra to use the competition. The contract negotiations like this have been going on for a couple years already, the Cable providers are demanding exclusive rights from the content producers restricting them from offering the shows in full online via their own website, or online via ‘over the top’ providers like HULU and Netflix. In return they often pay a slight premium $$ more for the channel(s) but then they can just pass the extra cost onto… Read more »
Dave Hancock says “But they are BLOCKING access to a website (Al Jazeera) – PERIOD!!” I’m not sure the argument you are making is completely true. Net Neutrality violation would mean that your ISP is not allowing you to access the information, that the ISP is the one that is blocking you, right? as txpatriot mentioned, “Your ISP is not blocking anything, hence no Net Neutrality violation.” and as stated in the original post, “Pay television providers forced Al Jazeera to remove or block its online video content from American viewers in return for launching its new news channel on… Read more »
Dave I realize it’s a bit of semantics, but the fact remains, it is A-J itself that is blocking their online content (albeit the condition was forced on them by the cable co in order to carry the A-J cable channel), NOT your ISP. But the fact remains, A-J voluntarily agreed to the condition — they didn’t have to (but I agree they had very little leverage if they wanted to get their news channel delivered to cable customers). While the effect is very similar to a Net Neutrality violation, technically your ISP is in full compliance as they are… Read more »
CBS did the same thing during the last week or so of their Time-Warner Cable blackout. I tried to go to CBS.com to watch an episode of a CBS show (as recommended in a ‘how to watch CBS shows’ video TWC had posted in place of where the CBS on-demand shows would normally go), and the CBS.com site actually detected I was connecting from a TWC internet service IP address, and blocked me from watching any of their online videos! So I went and found a pirated copy elsewhere, and CBS lost out on my ad views. 😛 And BTW,… Read more »
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