Al Jazeera America goes off the air Tuesday. It debuted with such promise, but was hurt by rumors of meddling from Qatar and mistreatment of employees in New York.
AJA suffered from a name problem too. Selling ‘Al Jazeera’ to Americans, what were they thinking? Their named had been dragged through the mud as a friend of the bad guys in earlier Middle East conflicts.
Naming your product is a big deal. I can’t tell you how many people told me they wouldn’t watch Fox Connecticut because they thought we were owned by Fox News! We were not. We were affiliated with the editorially liberal Hartford Courant.
It made no difference to them. I’ll bet it cost us 25% in audience.
You know, there was once a ‘diet candy’ name Ayds. Whatever happened to them?