[9][10][7] Al Jazeera Satellite Channel, now known as AJA, was launched on 1 November 1996 following the closure of the BBC's Arabic language television station, a joint venture with Orbit Communications Company.

The BBC channel closed after a year and a half when the Saudi government attempted to censor information, including a graphic report on executions and prominent dissident views.

While other local broadcasters in the region would assiduously avoid material embarrassing to their home governments (Qatar has its own official TV station as well), Al Jazeera was pitched as an impartial news source and platform for discussing issues relating to the Arab world.

[6] Lively and far-ranging talk shows, particularly a popular, confrontational one called El-Itidjah el-Mouakass (Arabic for The Opposite Direction), were a constant source of controversy regarding issues of morality and religion.

[citation needed] Al Jazeera came to the attention of many in the West during the search for Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States.

In 2005, Tayseer Allouni, an Al Jazeera journalist who was tasked to interview Osama bin Laden several weeks after the 9/11 attacks was arrested in Spain while he was investigating the Madrid train bombings.

"Doha rejects discussing any matter related to Al Jazeera channel as it considers it an internal affair," Qatar News Agency quoted the foreign minister as saying.

[47][48] In 2018, Al Jazeera reported apparent new details regarding a 1996 Qatari coup d'état attempt in a documentary accusing the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt, of orchestrating it.

[50] As of June 2019, the United Arab Emirates had paid the lobbying firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld $1.9m in the preceding year, principally concerning Qatar government-owned media.

[55][56] The channel began broadcasting in late 1996, with many staff joining from the BBC World Service's Saudi-co-owned Arabic-language TV station, which had shut down on 1 April 1996 after two years of operation because of censorship demands by the Saudi Arabian government.

Ahmed bin Jassim Al Thani replaced Khanfar and served as the director general of the channel from September 2011 to June 2013 when he was appointed minister of economy and trade.

[72][73][81][82] Al Jazeera's popularity has been attributed to its in-depth coverage of issues considered to be of great importance to the international Arab population, many of which received minimal attention from other outlets, such as: the Palestinian perspective on the second Intifada, the experiences of Iraqis living through the Iraq war, and the exclusive broadcast of tapes produced by Osama Bin-Laden.

Whether in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, or Syria, the stories highlighted and the criticisms aired by guests on Al Jazeera's news programs have often significantly affected the course of events in the region.

The New York Times stated in January 2011: "The protests rocking the Arab world this week have one thread uniting them: Al Jazeera, ... whose aggressive coverage has helped propel insurgent emotions from one capital to the next."

The newspaper quoted Marc Lynch, a professor of Middle East Studies at George Washington University: "They did not cause these events, but it's almost impossible to imagine all this happening without Al Jazeera.

"[87] With Al Jazeera's growing global outreach and influence, some scholars including Adel Iskandar have described the station as a transformation of the very definition of "alternative media.

There were hundreds of millions of potential viewers among the non-Arabic language speaking Muslims in Europe and Asia, however, and many others who might be interested in seeing news from the Middle East read by local voices.

[100] The acquisition of Current TV by Al Jazeera allowed Time Warner Cable to drop the network due to its low ratings, but they released a statement saying that they would consider carrying the channel after they evaluated whether it made sense for their customers.

In August 2014, Gore and fellow shareholder Joel Hyatt launched a lawsuit against Al Jazeera claiming a residual payment of $65 million of the sale proceeds, due in 2014, remained unpaid.

In the United States and Canada, beIN Sport holds the rights to broadcast La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1, Copa del Rey, South American World Cup Qualifier and English Championship matches, in addition to Barca TV.

InfoCom was later convicted of exporting to Syria and Gaddafi-ruled Libya, of knowingly being invested in by a Hamas member (both of which are illegal in the United States), and of underpaying customs duties.

Contrary to business "All Rights Reserved" standards, the license invites third parties, including rival broadcasters, to reuse and remix the footage, so long as Al Jazeera is credited.

[153][159] Multiple sources have stated that Al Jazeera's board of directors is chaired by a member of the Qatari royal family and is primarily financed directly by the Emir rather than through a broadcasting receiving licence.

"[195] In 2019, congressman Jack Bergman wrote in the Washington Examiner that "Al Jazeera's record of radical anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel broadcasts warrants scrutiny from regulators to determine whether this network is in violation of US law".

The Lebanese newspaper As-Safir cited outtakes of interviews showing that the channel's staff coached Syrian eyewitnesses and fabricated reports of oppression by Syria's government.

[204] In January 2013, a former Al Jazeera employee from Syria stated their belief that there was ongoing strong pressure to conform to biased coverage of the Syrian Civil War.

[209] In June 2023, India … Who Lit the Fuse?, a documentary produced by Al Jazeera's Point Blank investigation series, was banned by the Allahabad High Court in Uttar Pradesh.

Racine posed as an Al Jazeera employee to get a password to the network's site, then redirected visitors to a page he created that showed an American flag shaped like a U.S. map and a patriotic motto, court documents said.

Shariah and Life (al-Sharīʿa wa al-Ḥayāh) is an Al Jazeera Arabic show with an estimated audience of 60 million worldwide and stars Muslim preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is described as "Islam's Spiritual 'Dear Abby'".

The entire first episode (of four), which dealt with "the process that led the Muslim Empire to enduringly weave an immense network of slave trade across Africa, the Middle East and Asia" was deleted.