Al Jazeera Media Network
 |
|
| Private Institution of Public Utility | |
| Industry | Mass Media |
| Founded | 1996 |
| Founders | Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani |
| Headquarters | Doha, Qatar |
|
Key people
|
Chairman Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani Director General Dr. Mostefa Souag |
| Products | Cable Network Programming, Direct-broadcast satellite, Television, New media, Multicultural Education |
|
Number of employees
|
100,000+ |
| Subsidiaries |
News- Al Jazeera Arabic Al Jazeera English Al Jazeera Mubasher Al-‘Amma Al Jazeera Balkans (Balkans) Al Jazeera Türk (Turkey) Sports- beIN Media Group Educational- Al Jazeera Documentary Channel JeemTV Other- AJ+ Aljazeera.com Al Jazeera Mobile Al Jazeera New Media Al Jazeera Center for Studies Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival Miramax Films |
| Website | Al Jazeera Media Network Blog |
Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN) is a Middle Eastern multinational multimedia conglomerate, and is the parent company of Al Jazeera and its related networks. The chairman is Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani. The acting director general is Dr. Mostefa Souag. The network's news operation currently has a total of 70 bureaux around the world that are shared between the network's channels and operations, the second largest amount of bureaux of any media company in the world after the BBC.
The original Al Jazeera Satellite Channel (then called JSC or Jazeera Satellite Channel) was launched on 1 November 1996 following the closure of the first BBC Arabic language television station, then a joint venture with Orbit Communications Company, owned by Saudi King Fahd's cousin, Khalid bin Faisal Al Saud. The BBC channel had closed after a year and a half when the Saudi government attempted to thwart a documentary pertaining to executions under sharia law.
The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, provided a loan of QAR 500 million ($137 million) to sustain Al Jazeera through its first five years, as Hugh Miles detailed in his book Al Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab News Channel That Is Challenging the West.
Al Jazeera's first day on the air was 1 November 1996. It offered 6-hours of programming per day; this would increase to 12-hours by the end of 1997. It was broadcast to the immediate neighborhood as a terrestrial signal, and on cable, as well as through satellites (which was also free to users in the Arab world). 1 January 1999 was Al Jazeera's first day of 24-hour broadcasting. Employment had more than tripled in one year to 500 employees, and the agency had bureaux at a dozen sites as far as EU and Russia. Its annual budget was estimated at about $25 million at the time.
...
Wikipedia