Al Jazeera Launches Streaming Hub Boosting Its Reach

Al Jazeera Media Network is launching a streaming platform called Al Jazeera 360 that the Qatar-based news network is hailing as a digital milestone and a gateway for the public to watch its news content without restrictions at a time of mounting tensions over its coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict. 

Following the Al Jazeera 360 kickoff on Sept. 15, the streamer — which is free-of-charge and currently only in Arabic language — has drawn more than a million views in its first week of service and hit more than 300,000 app downloads, according to Jamal Elshayyal, the network’s digital content manager.

In an interview with Variety Elshayyal called AJ360 “the fastest growing” streamer in the Arab World, even though, he added, “it’s early days.”

The Al Jazeera 360 streaming and video-on-demand platform comprises the network’s news channels, plus a smattering of content produced exclusively for the platform, and, significantly, up to 50,000 hours of news programs and documentaries that have been in Al Jazeera Media Network’s archives since its inception in 1996.

The Al Jazeera 360 launch is taking place just as Israeli troops on Sunday stormed into its offices in the Israeli-occupied West Bank ordering the satellite network’s bureau to shut down after, in May, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet shut down Al Jazeera’s operations within Israel. The network called the latest shutdown “an affront to press freedom and the very principles of journalism.”

“In terms of what is happening in Gaza, information is being restricted,” said Elshayyal, noting that Al Jazeera news content related to the war in Gaza is being censored on different platforms, including YouTube, where Al Jazeera’s Arabic page “has close to 20 million subscribers,” he said, and where its Gaza-related news has been “taken off or shadow-banned.”

Elshayyal described the launch of Al Jazeera 360 as “essentially a declaration of independence for Al Jazeera” and a way to counter being “held hostage” by a third-party platform such as YouTube.

Elshayyal also claimed that Al Jazeera 360 represents “the first-of-its-kind streaming platform, not just in the Arab world, but actually in the world [at large]” he said, noting that the CNN+ subscription-based streaming hub that launched in 2022 was subsequently shut down within a month from its launch.

The Al Jazeera exec said the news network plans to launch an Al Jazeera 360 platform with curated content for an English speaking audience by the end of 2025 and called the platform “the next phase in our evolution.”

“I think what we have here — albeit Arabic at first — could drive enough interest among people [globally] to watch the news network that came out of the Arab world 28 years ago and managed to establish itself as a global brand,” said Elshayyal. “Now we are doing the same thing within a new frontier.”