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Thursday, September 20, 2012

Bye bye CNN!

Citing high costs and the channel's declining viewership, Israel's YES cable channel has announced that it will no longer offer CNN to subscribers after December 31 (Hat Tip: Shy Guy). Since YES is currently the only Israeli cable provider that is offering CNN, it means that Ted Turner's channel will no longer be offered in Israel. Perhaps reality-denying headlines like the one above have something to do with it?
CNN, once considered the standard in international cable news, has been losing ground in recent years to competitors, like Fox News (which is available in Israel). Like in the U.S., Fox News has higher ratings among YES customers than CNN does, even though Fox News is a “premium” channel that customers must pay for above the cost of their subscription.
Industry insiders said that the satellite broadcaster felt it was paying too much to feed CNN to local customers, a situation that came about because of the original contract Israeli broadcasters signed with CNN some two decades ago; the price started out high and remained so, they said. In a statement, YES said that it was examining replacement services, but that in the meantime customers who wanted to watch an international news service in English could choose from a wide variety of stations, including Fox News, Sky News, BBC World, Bloomberg, and English language news services from France, China, and Japan.
Last year, HOT, the cable television provider, dropped CNN over a similar contract dispute. HOT replaced CNN with the much more reasonably priced MSNBC.
In a statement, CNN said that "it is exploring the way we deliver our news in Israel. It’s worth noting, however, that with an im‎portant US election coming up, the continued dynamics of this region, and major global events that impact us all, the need for independent and objective journalism has never been greater.  CNN recently grew its viewership across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia to remain the #1 news channel by a mile.
 Something tells me that CNN won't be missed much here.

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3 Comments:

At 6:52 PM, Blogger Shawarma said...

And yet Cable and Satellite in Israel still deliver the worst of the worst Arab channels to all customers, Jews and Arabs. Galilee Arabs watch Hezbollah propaganda channel Al-Mannar. Teibe Arabs watch Al-Jazeera, indoctrinated in hate and sedition

 
At 9:23 PM, Blogger Empress Trudy said...

They should boot CNN staffers from Israel too.

 
At 7:06 AM, Blogger Findalis said...

I wonder if the government will shut down the CNN bureau or will they shut it down themselves.

 

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