Time Warner Cable will soon carry Al Jazeera America, the cable provider and news station announced on Thursday.
Time Warner pulled Current from its Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks customer lineups in January when Al Jazeera announced it had purchased the channel to create an American version of its news network.
Putting their past difficulties behind them, AJAM’s interim CEO Ehab Al Shihabi said: “it has been a pleasure working with TWC over the past few months as their executives evaluated our programming and commitment to fact-based, in depth reporting.”
Also read: Al Jazeera America Responds to Initial Low Ratings: Demand Is Strong for the Network
“We appreciate the vote of confidence that Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks have given to our brand of unbiased journalism and look forward to working with them as Al Jazeera America continues to grow,” he added.
“We said in January that we would consider Al Jazeera America. Now that the channel is live, we think that it would be of value to our customers and are pleased to make it available,” said Time Warner Cable EVP and chief video and content officer Melinda Witmer.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed by either party, but TWC customers are very important to Al Jazeera America’s ability to penetrate the American television landscape. Only about 45 million homes carry AJAM — less than half the number of homes that carry competitors Fox News, MSNBC and CNN — and this deal will put AJAM in 10 million more of them.
Also read: Al Jazeera America Sues AT&T for ‘Unilaterally’ Dropping It Before Launch
Time Warner customers in New York City and Los Angeles will start receiving AJAM sometime before the end of the year, New York Times said, while the rest of the country will get the channel by March.
AJAM still has plenty of work to do, of course. Its lawsuit against AT&T for dropping the channel from several million homes the day before its launch could take years to sort out. Ratings since the August launch have been very low, though the channel was expecting this and often said it is willing to be patient in its quest to win the country over.