Intended Audience
The audience of Al-Jazeera is mostly intended to be for Arab speaking peoples that inhabit all parts of the world. There are two main reasons behind this claim.
- Number 1 is that many native Arabs living outside of the Middle East cannot get news specific to the Middle East that is not just about War and/or terrorism. Most of the news that comes out of the Middle East on mainstream broadcasting networks talks about War or Terrorism in the Middle East rather than other topics such as sports or entertainment. Al-Jazeera provides and outlet for this. Their coverage is mostly focused in the Middle East and does not just include atrocities that occur in places such as Syria and Iraq. Its normal everyday news like we have here. (My uncle whom lives in Germany watches Al-Jazeera for this sort of reason).
- The second reason is that Al-Jazeera delivers news in Arabic which is something many ethnic Arabs like to have when living outside of the Middle East. As discussed earlier in History and Background BBC's Arabic Television Station was shut down in 1996 which caught many off guard and vying for news in Arabic. The direct response was of course Al Jazeera.. The formation and creation of Al Jazeera delivering its news in Arabic pleased many of those worldwide. While Al Jazeera may have shut down in America numbers are still very strong in Europe and elsewhere with over 4 million viewers during prime-time in Europe.