Christians Under Attack

The USA has been the downfall of many a foreign export but when you're a broadcaster based in the Arab world, bankrolled by a Middle Eastern autocrat and associated in the popular mindset with terrorist videos, the endeavour begins to look near-impossible.

When the English-language channel was set up in November 2006 to provide impartial competition for CNN and the BBC, the reputation of its Arabic sister channel, Al Jazeera, was already controversial. Some observers claimed that it broadcast videos sent to the station from terrorist suspects, while US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had wrongly suggested that the network showed hostages being beheaded.

Since this inauspicious start, the Al Jazeera English team has been manning the PR battle lines against lobbyists anxious to keep the channel off US television line-ups.

So how did the Al Jazeera brand begin to convince US audiences that it serves a serious broadcasting purpose?

Tony Burman, managing director of Al Jazeera English and former Canadian TV executive, has found some of the answers while the station has built up an audience of 140m households in 40 countries – including Israel.

Among Mr Burman's priorities has been busting a few myths, hiring journalists from well-established rivals and focusing news coverage on the developing world.

The English-language channel is carried by satellite television operator Sky in the UK. More astonishingly, its commercial team is on the brink of signing several contracts with cable and satellite operators to give it a reach right across the US.

"We want to rival CNN and the BBC World in size and quality," the managing director says. "There has been a political dimension to our lack of coverage, but with Obama in office, there has been an increased hunger for looking at the wider world."

In recent months, the campaign to widen audiences has been led by the grassroots website IwantAJE.com. This is where the channel claims to set the record straight that Al Jazeera has never shown a beheading, only airs footage of terrorists for newsworthy purposes and has ever been anti-American.

There have even been rumours in political circles – strongly denied by business secretary Peter Mandelson and Al Jazeera – that the channel would be well-placed to make an offer for ITV.

It no longer seems such an outlandish proposition given that the channel is creeping up on CNN and BBC World, with half the number of viewers but a greater audience in parts of Africa, South America, the Middle East and Asia.

Despite its rising reputation, some of the English-language channel's most recent controversies have concerned editorial neutrality.

David Marash, a former ABC presenter, quit the Washington bureau accusing senior management of succumbing to political pressure from the station's Qatari owners.

The channel also recently fought and won at a tribunal brought by a white Christian female employee claiming race, sex and religious discrimination.

Charges of anti-Western bias are rigorously denied by the station, which has published a code of ethics committing to free speech and balanced reporting.

At the broadcasting centre in Knightsbridge, staff from dozens of different countries share the address with an Abu Dhabi sovereign fund.

It has only a small set of studios cramped into a basement full of young-looking staff, but the first two names above my own in the visitors' book have considerable clout: those of veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost, who has his own political show, and Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe, one of his guests.

Journalists go on air here in the afternoon, "following the sun" with a few hours of broadcasting from Kuala Lumpur, then Doha in Qatar, London and Washington.

"We don't devote time to celebrity or salacious crime stories, like the Meredith Kercher murder trial," says Ben Rayner, the executive producer of European news and a former ITN editor. "We are serious about investigative stories."

On the day of Jade Goody's death from cancer, a story that has gripped the UK media, a search of the Al Jazeera English website yields only one news piece from 2007. TV show tormentor ousted: Jade Goody is voted off Celebrity Big Brother after being accused of racism.

It is mid-morning and reports are already flooding in from around the globe – with one dispatch about landmines in Angola, another about water shortages in Kazakhstan.

The far-flung correspondents also give the rare impression of a TV newsroom less troubled by money worries than most, at a time when financial constraints have shut studios and foreign desks globally.

By some estimates, the Emir of Qatar has sunk $1bn into Al Jazeera. Has the channel been feeling the effects of the economic crisis at all? According to Mr Burman, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani intends his flagship channels to become commercially self-sustaining but there is no timetable for privatisation nor worries about funding.

Unlike the BBC, Al Jazeera English does carry limited advertising, and pay-TV operators are charged a fee to carry it on their networks but Mr Burman is not able to give details about how much revenue is from advertising.

Neither can the commercial director, Phil Lawrie, a former Time Warner executive, who is reluctant to talk about figures.

"Until now there hasn't been a huge amount of advertising but it has doubled year-on-year," he says.

Mr Lawrie believes that the channel's commercial potential lies principally with distribution fees paid by a cable or satellite provider.

"It's a turning point when you go from being carried for free to securing a fair and reasonable fee," Mr Lawrie says. "At the moment, our aims are not economic or commercial but securing distribution."

Could it be that advertisers do not want their product linked the contentious Al Jazeera name?

Mr Burman believes those who have watched the channel will see that its quality speaks for itself.

Viewing figures have been boosted by the English-language station's coverage of the Gaza conflict late last year, when the network's reporters were the only ones inside the borders.

Although the channel reaches only a sprinkling of US households in Vermont, Texas, Washington and Ohio, live streaming of its coverage on its website and YouTube increased six-fold during the war – with 60pc of viewers in the US and the UK.

"We fight on two fronts – with the conventional TV channel and a strong website where we have no coverage," claims Mr Burman.

"We are an alternative voice," he adds. "I love the BBC and CNN but you don't have to watch for long to realise they are Western channels with a Western perspective. We don't have a home town. We are international and that appeals to people."

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