DOHA: The viewership of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Channel has touched 141 million in the Arab world, says its Managing Director Wadah Khanfar.

The channel was launched about 13 years ago.

The free and objective reporting introduced by the channel for the first time in the region and its policy of giving equal opportunity for varying opinions have made the channel hart to beat, claimed the official.

He added that the oppressive measures adopted by some governments against the channel had made it even more popular in the respective countries.

“The findings of a viewership survey carried out by a specialized company were beyond our expectations. For us it was a huge number and we were hesitant to announce it,” said Khanfar, in an interview with Al Sharq daily.

He admitted that the network was not spared by the global financial crisis that hit almost every private and public corporations across the world.

“Al Jazeera responded to the crisis by regulating its administrative and operational expenses. According to the annual financial statement, the channel succeeded in cutting 20 percent of its costs. Unlike many leading channels across the world such as the BBC which laid off 1,500 of its staff, Al Jazeera has not sacked any of its staff on the back of the global crisis,” said Khanfar.

The channel relied on commercial advertisements to cover the operational cost and not for profits. There was severe shortage of ads in the beginning due to political reasons. Some countries avoided advertising in Al Jazeera because of their disappointment with its news coverage.

“The situation is changing now as many international companies needing to promote their products in the Middle East are coming to the network due its wide reach in the region and the world. Part of the credit goes to Q-Media (Qatar Media), Al Jazeera’s advertising agents, which has offices in various regions with a qualified marketing staff,” said Khanfar.

He said closure of bureaus, detention of Al Jazeera’s journalists by some countries had helped increase the number of viewers in those countries.They later realized that closure of bureaus would deprive government officials of the opportunity to express their views through TV debates.

Asked if the Al Jazeera International had a different editorial policy from that of the Arabic channel, Khanfar said, “ The basic policy is the same but a direct translation of the Arabic contents would not make sense since the viewers are different. We have plans to improve the English channel with more live coverage and by adding more bureaus.”

On criticisms that the channel shied away from covering incidents in Qatar, Khanfar said,

“This is not correct. Recently we telecast a programme about foreign workers in Qatar in which the particiopants freely cricitised the sponsorship law and denial of basic human rights. And officials were hosted to respond to such complaints in an objective way. We also aired an interview with the Prime Minister HE Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani where very sensitive issues were raised. Qatar is smaller compared to other countries. Whenever there is an incident here it was given a fare coverage.”

Asked if the channel’s editorial policy was influenced by Qatar’s foreign policy, he said, “Some countries have good relations with Al Jazeera while their relations with Qatar are not so good.”

He said 22 percent of the Al Jazeera staff are nationals and they are highest in number among the 22 nationalities working with it. THE PENINSULA