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Al Jazeera America to Launch Tuesday

Promises “bold new news.”

Al Jazeera America, the U.S. offering of the Qatar-funded Al Jazeera news empire, will launch Tuesday and will be available on about half of the country’s 100 million televisions. “There will be less opinion, less yelling, and fewer celebrity sightings,” said the channel’s chief executive, Ehab Al Shihabi. Al Jazeera bought Current TV’s cable distribution for $500 million last year, although the station faces of the risk of having a high-numbered channel far from its competitors. The network also only plans to have six minutes of commercials per hour. American cable companies had been reluctant to include Al Jazeera until now due to a perception of the network being “anti-American.”