Al Jazeera Türk (AJT) was a news website in Turkish. It was owned by the

Al Jazeera Media Network Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN) (Arabic: الجزيرة‎, romanized: al-jazīrah, IPA: �l (d)ʒæˈziːrɐ , referring to the Qatar Peninsula) is a Qatari international state-owned public media conglomerate headquartered at Qatar Radio and T ...

. Attempts to launch a television network do not appear to have succeeded. The website was shut down on 3 May 2017.

Early background and first launch attempt

In February 2011, the

Savings Deposit Insurance Fund of Turkey The Savings Deposit Insurance Fund of Turkey ( tr, Tasarruf Mevduatı Sigorta Fonu), a.k.a. TMSF in abbreviated form, is the governing body concerned with matters of fund management and insurance in the Turkish banking system. The body was found ...

put

Cine5 Cine5 was the first subscription-based television channel in Turkey. It aired in an encrypted format and primarily broadcast feature-length movies when it was founded on September 20, 1993. Subscribers were required to buy a decoder to watch the c ...

up for sale after the channel was confiscated when the owner Erol Aksoy went in debt and became bankrupt.

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

made a bid for the network and acquired it for $40.5 million after an unsuccessful $21 million bid. Al Jazeera then renamed the channel and is currently working on launching Al Jazeera Turkish. In April 2012, there were reports of the channel being delayed over its refusal to call the

Kurdistan Workers Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of south ...

as "terrorists" as most Turkish news outlets do, citing journalistic standards. The Foreign Ministry, who advocated the project, became at odds with the channel. Vural Ak, a major Turkish investor, withdrew from the partnership with Al Jazeera. Nuh Yilmaz, head of Al Jazeera's Turkish editorial team, also resigned.

Digital online launch

Plans and efforts to launch the channel restarted in 2013 shortly after the launch of Al Jazeera America. On January 21, 2014, Al Jazeera Turk's website launched with news content. The move made Al Jazeera Turk the first 24-hour news operation to go digital before broadcast. Like how the Al Jazeera English and

Al Jazeera Balkans Al Jazeera Balkans (AJB) is an international news television station headquartered in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina aimed at the media markets of the countries that used to be constituent units of SFR Yugoslavia. It is part of the Al Jazee ...

websites are designed similarly the Al Jazeera Turk site was designed similar to the

Al Jazeera America Al Jazeera America was an American pay television news channel owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network. The channel was launched on August 20, 2013, to compete with CNN, HLN, MSNBC, Fox News, and in certain markets RT America. It was Al Jazeera' ...

site. Also like its English, Arabic and Balkans counterparts the channel had its own digital Magazine.

Channel launch

The channel was under construction with plans to launch towards the end of 2014. Construction and indoor works were underway at the upcoming channel's building in Topkapı, İstanbul. The channel claimed its news center was built around the channel's regional vision.

Closure

On May 3, 2017, the Al Jazeera Media Network announced that it would shut down Al Jazeera Türk's digital operations.

References

External links