mesh11

A year or two ago, many people in North America had likely never heard of the Al Jazeera network — or if they had, they probably thought of it as an Arabic TV channel that was primarily devoted to demonizing the West. Thanks in part to the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and Libya over the past six months, however, millions more have not only heard of the network but turned to it for the authoritative version of events in those countries. And a big part of the network’s success is due to Tony Burman, the former head of the CBC who joined the network in 2008 and is now head of strategy for Al Jazeera in The Americas.

In an op-ed piece in The Toronto Star, Burman said that the revolutions in the Middle East provided Al Jazeera with the modern equivalent of the “CNN moment” during the Gulf War that cemented the all-news network’s place in the media firmament. According to Burman, traffic to the network’s live online streaming of its coverage climbed by more than 2,500 per cent in a single week in February, with about 60 per cent of that coming from the U.S. In that same period, an estimated 7 million Americans watched 50 million minutes of AJE coverage. Al Jazeera provided its content to cable and satellite systems around the world, and also released much of its footage and photos with a Creative Commons license so that websites and other sources could make use of it.

In a special one-on-one session at mesh 2011, we’ll be talking with Burman about the incredible rise of Al Jazeera and what it says about the future of both television and media as a whole. As long ago as 2006, Burman said: “More than ever, audiences are determining how the media will evolve. They want news, information and much of their media on their terms on a variety of platforms — whether TV, radio, newspapers, laptops, personal organizers, cellphones or iPods. And they want a genuine two-way relationship with their content-providers that is more than simply sitting back and absorbing…. They want to respond, engage and create — to be contributors, not merely consumers.”

During his time as Managing Director of Al Jazeera English, Burman directed the network’s growth in North America — including the launch of the channel in Washington D.C., the first major market to carry AJE in the U.S. — and the worldwide audience reach for AJE more than doubled 100 million households to 220 million. In his current role, he oversees AJE’s efforts to expand its reach and reputation in the U.S. and Canada. Before coming to Al Jazeera English, Tony was editor-in-chief and executive director of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for nearly eight years, and prior to that spend three decades at the CBC as a news and documentary producer in more than 30 countries.