It May Have Huge Web Traffic, but Al Jazeera's U.S. Moment Hasn't Arrived

The turmoil in Egypt reopens a question that many would have thought closed: Could a U.S. cable provider, satellite company or telco decide to carry Al Jazeera?

Millions have been streaming Al Jazeera English online as the protests in Egypt continue. The network has been praised for its coverage at a time when the world is thirsting for news from Egypt -- so Al Jazeera is now pushing to have the channel carried here. One of its initiatives is a Meetup scheduled for a week from today intended to "Demand Al Jazeera on Your TV." There's also a banner on its home page that allows visitors, using their zip code, to contact their local cable, satellite and telco companies about carrying the network. (UPDATE: At least as of late Friday afternoon, Al Jazeera had also bought #demandaljazeera as a promoted tweet. Promoted tweets are one of Twitter's ad models.)

Remaking its rep in the English-speaking world
Could Al Jazeera actually catch the interest of a Time Warner Cable or a Comcast? Its central role in covering the crisis has certainly helped remake its reputation in the English-speaking world, where until now, Al Jazeera has mainly been seen as the universe's foremost clearing house for Osama Bin Laden videos. But its front-and-center position in the biggest story on the planet doesn't necessarily seal the deal.

Unfortunately for Al Jazeera, interest in its coverage is likely to wane as soon as the crisis itself does. Assuming we're not looking at an ongoing crisis -- and, of course, at the moment your guess on the likelihood of that is as good as mine -- the protests and clashes in Egypt don't represent much more than a temporary spike in viewer interest. That's certainly not enough for cable providers to embrace what many would still consider a hot potato in the media world.

Despite a 2500 percent increase in Al Jazeera's Web traffic since last Friday, cable providers and satellite companies don't seem to be jumping at a chance to carry it. Take a gander at this mealy-mouthed quote from Comcast, when Daily Finance asked what its plans might be concerning Al Jazeera:

We can't speculate; however, we regularly examine our channel lineups and talk with a wide range of programmers to ensure that we are bringing the content that our customers want the most.

Bigger problem: Al Jazeera makes no moolah
There's yet another reason for cable-company reticence: Al Jazeera will mean nothing to its bottom line. Cable networks have two revenue streams: subscribers and advertising. Al Jazeera, which can be streamed online for free, isn't going to drive either one. Sure, as of Monday, it had 1.6 million views in the U.S., but that's a drop in the bucket, and an unsustainably high level of traffic unless the crisis continues.

If it does get picked up, it will be by an upstart that has closely studied demographic patterns in the communities it serves -- and identified Al Jazeera as an advantage in the ongoing war for subscribers. For most of the country, though, it just won't matter.