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Baltimore Sun

Cable News Channel Sees a Surge in Viewership

Jul 28, 2014  •  Post A Comment

One cable news channel has seen a recent surge in viewership, which is being attributed to coverage of the Gaza conflict. It’s not one of the big three — Fox News, CNN or MSNBC — but rather a recent startup, Al Jazeera America, where viewership for total day has risen by 30% during the past two weeks, the Baltimore Sun reports.

In prime time, viewership is up 40% when compared with numbers from last month, the story notes.

“What that translates to is the channel reaching 3.0 million unique viewers for the total day, and 1.4 million in prime time, according to an Al Jazeera America spokesperson,” the piece notes. “That’s big news for the American brand of Al Jazeera that has been struggling in the ratings since its launch a year ago.”

Al Jazeera America’s coverage of the Gaza conflict has been “outstanding,” the newspaper notes. Its correspondents have covered events in Gaza and Jerusalem, as well as protests around the world.

“When Al Jazeera America first debuted and was getting very weak ratings, my sense was that they needed a story they could own, that people would have to come to them for,” Philip Seib, author of “The Al Jazeera Effect” and journalism professor at the University of Southern California, told the publication. “Maybe this is going to be it.”

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