Al Jazeera To Provide News for ‘Worldfocus’ Public TV Show
International Nightly News Show Developed by WLIW
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 1/15/2009 2:40:00 PM
Al Jazeera Network has entered into a deal with to provide content for Worldfocus, an internationally centered nightly news program developed by New York’s WLIW, officials said Thursday.
Under the agreement, news from Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic will be included in Worldfocus as part of the show’s daily broadcasts on public television stations nationwide.
The deal marks another step for Al Jazeera English’s distribution efforts in America, increasing exposure of its award-winning news coverage to millions of new U.S. households.
“We are extremely excited by this new partnership with WLIW’s Worldfocus,” Kimeran Daley, Al Jazeera Network’s head of North American distribution sales, said in a prepared statement. “We look forward to giving more Americans around the country a glimpse into the groundbreaking news coverage that Al Jazeera routinely offers to audiences in over 100 countries around the world, 24-hours a day, 7 days a week.”
Under the terms of the agreement, all Al Jazeera content used by Worldfocus will be branded with Al Jazeera’s logo.
Worldfocus, hosted by former NBC News correspondent Martin Savidge, was launched to fill the void in international news coverage and inform American viewers about the relevance of international events. The newscast premiered nationwide in October on a lineup of public television stations in over 60 U.S. markets, and 27 of the Top 30, including a variety of prominent PBS affiliates. On WLIW and its sister station, WNET, the newscast has replaced BBC World News, with two airings on each station each night.
In addition to the Worldfocus agreement, Al Jazeera English has also enjoyed a successful partnership with LINK TV in the United States, which has broadcast Al Jazeera English’s Witness program in more than 30 million U.S. households nationwide each week since last September.
Al Jazeera English, which launched in November 2006, was recently awarded “Best 24 Hour News Program” at the 48th Annual Monte Carlo Television Festival, and also received its first two International Emmy nominations in both news and current affairs. The channel is currently available to over 130 million households worldwide.
