It’s Al Jazeera. You know, for kids!
From FishbowlNY:
Al Jazeera is in talks with Comcast and Time Warner to bring Al Jazeera’s Children’s Channel to the U.S. as early as 2012. The channel carries syndicated and original programming – translated into English – that currently runs on the Arabic-language channel of the same name.
So what kind of programs can people expect? Well, there’s Saladin, a cartoon which tells the story of the Crusades from the vantage point of a Muslim warrior, and a documentary about children living in the Gaza Strip, just to name a couple.
But FishbowlNY also hits on a major potential snag:
[W]ill parents let their kids watch it? It’s an interesting question, because while people can talk all they want about accepting other cultures, what they do behind closed doors might be an entirely different story.
Plus, of course, many Americans have not the slightest interest in accepting other cultures. While many curious Americans made Al Jazeera’s English-language live Web stream newly popular during the recent Egypt crisis, many other Americans have been very vocal about why they they don’t want the network on American cable systems
Will Americans accept the new Al Jazeera children’s channel? Will parents let their kids watch? Will kids want to watch? (That’s excluding Arab-American parents and kids, who represent only a tiny minority of the America population, and won’t be enough to let such a channel survive.)
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