Al Jazeera English & Al Jazeera America

I really like the idents though. The gold ray of light sweeping across different American landscapes is very nice. I can see how you might think it looks unimaginative to British eyes though, as it is a little bit ITV, but it's different for this market because we don't have those kinds of majestic idents.

Also, keep in mind that this is what the competition looks like:

I think a mixture of Current Mk. 2 and Current Mk. 1 would be perfect. Prioritizing user content and the non-mainstream culture made Current 'independent' - they could have recruited Vice, and Kick TV and SPOTP and they could make a superb set of Documentaries mixed in with genuine point and shoot classics. Vanguard could have stayed, too. But mixing that in with Olbermann and TYT and Infomania would have made cornerstones to build the schedule around.

I think although Hyatt and Gore had the right idea that shorter content would be popular (look at Youtube, Vimeo) he misunderstood that the world we live in today is a PVR world. People want things they can watch online and things they can record on TiVo and Sky+. It didn't help they were sabotaged in Italy and the UK by Mr Murdoch.

Current TV could have been great, and was still great while they were producing Olbermann and Vanguard, but I agree, the original concept had a USP and a vision.

I've noticed that former CNN correspondent Jeanne Meserve is showing up on Al Jazeera English lately from Washington DC, particularly when talking about Syria, and they do not refer her as a fellow on Georgetown University.

Does this mean she is freelancing as an analyst for Al Jazeera?
And does she show up on Al Jazeera America?

I think you're probably right that Hyatt and Gore may have chosen the wrong medium and were before their time. They basically came up with a curated cable form of YouTube before YouTube. I don't think that means the channel couldn't have done well though. I like your idea of getting content from Vice. Their documentaries would have been a good fit.

The way I wish Current had evolved would have been to build up some of the news content. Yes, keep the quirky 'pods', but I think maybe a Reuters subscription (or another major news partner) would have allowed them to mix some newsier content into the mix while also making sure that some of the content was, ahem, current and new every day. I don't think it needed to try to become a full-on cable news channel by any means, but also a nightly youth-oriented newscast with an emphasis on investigative reporting would have also been great (which would also probably look a lot like AJAM's America Tonight, I suppose).



Yes, she's been on AJAM too. AJE and AJAM have been sharing correspondents, it appears, although not for every story. Most of the Egypt coverage on AJAM has been done by Jonathan Betz, a former news anchor from Dallas and who's there on a temporary assignment, while Mike Hanna continues to report for AJE.

And courtesy of PTVNews at TVNewsTalk, here are most of AJAM's idents.

Superb.

That being said, I don't think there will be a change to AJ-English anytime soon. Their look is fairly timeless and still looks brilliant today, despite being 7 years old now.

Indeed, it's very nice. The music is a big consession to American news, it sounds like it comes from one of the big three network news programmes


AJE was to be part of an AJ network-wide rebrand by Lambie Nairn a few years ago, but it didn't happen. I suspect that they've launched AJAM with it and then will roll it out to AJE and AJ Balkans.

AJE's look is pretty good and the choice of colour really stands out but it is looking a bit tired now, the lower thirds especially look a bit flat.

AJE, AJAM and AJA all have distinctly different graphics now, I don't know if a unified look is a priority for them. Agree that AJE could do with a refresh, though it'd be a shame to lose the blue and orange colour scheme and that iconic opener.

I've noticed that Al Jazeera America still incorporated some presentations of Current TV...
Particularly that copyright disclaimer below...

There's certainly a big advantage in AJE, Balkans and America to have the same 'look' as they simulcast, just look at the mishmash in the screengrab posted earlier. There was a plan to have new graphics (see page 73), as I say I reckon AJAM have got them first and the others will catch up

I don't think that's unique to Current/AJAM, a lot of US channels have something similar.

I don't think CNN, Fox News and MSNBC have copyright and trademark disclaimers... on their IDs.
But I do think AJAM's idents remind me of the new Al Jazeera (Arabic) newscast openers (I can't find YouTube video of them, but you can watch on their YouTube livestream).