Popcorn Alert: Al Jazeera America is suing former Vice President Al Gore

Good times...

NEW YORK (AP) — Al Jazeera America is suing former Vice President Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, the former owners of the TV network that became Al Jazeera America.
The parties are fighting over money that is being held in escrow. The former vice president and Hyatt, the founder of Hyatt Legal Services, sued the network last month saying that it was improperly withholding tens of millions of dollars placed in escrow when Al Jazeera bought Current TV for $500 million.
Al Jazeera America says it is entitled to the money because Gore and Hyatt agreed to indemnify the network for claims made against Current TV, but didn’t live up to their promise. It accuses the pair of “misrepresentations” and says they received hundreds of millions of dollars from the sale.
Gore and Hyatt filed a lawsuit against the network in the Delaware Court of Chancery. The two men each owned 20 percent of Current TV.

Fail: Al Jazeera America averaging just 13,000 viewers a day

Hey, that's half as many as signed up for Obamacare on the Federal Exchange in October...

Via NY Post:

After just two months on the air, Al Jazeera America is losing ground in the US.
The US offshoot of the Mideast news outfit managed fewer than half of the viewers who tuned in to its predecessor, Al Gore’s Current TV.
Al Jazeera America has averaged just 13,000 viewers a day since its Aug. 20 launch — on par with a public access channel. In the 25- to 54-year-old audience sought by advertisers, it drew 5,000 viewers.
The ratings are so low, they are considered a “scratch” and aren’t reported by Nielsen.
“We are making large investments in programming and marketing,” an Al Jazeera America spokesperson said Sunday.
By comparison, 31,000 viewers tuned into Current TV a year ago.
Currently, Al Jazeera America is carried in about 44 million US households. The network lost millions of households when Time Warner Cable dropped it shortly after its debut.

Al Jazeera America is not that popular...

I wonder why?

Via TV Newser:

Al Jazeera America launched last week, and we have the ratings from Nielsen Media Research for its first few days.
Not surprisingly given the low-rated channel it replaced (Current TV), and the fact that it lost a few million homes from AT&T before launch (it is currently in just over 40 million homes), AJAM’s launch ratings were pretty low by traditional cable news standards.
The highest rated show on AJAM last week was the Thursday evening edition of “Real Money with Ali Velshi,” which drew 54,000 total viewers.
The 2 PM Saturday edition of “News Live” averaged 48,000 viewers, while “Inside Story” Thursday at 12:30 PM averaged 41,000 viewers. “News Live” Thursday from 12-12:30 averaged 40,000. The debut edition of “The Stream” on Tuesday averaged 38,000 viewers, below Nielsen’s accuracy threshold, while the debut of “America Tonight” averaged 34,000 viewers.