Al Jazeera Balkans, the outpost of the Qatari media concern in the Balkans, is closing down after 14 years, it was confirmed for Klix.
Al Jazeera Balkans is based in Sarajevo started working in 2011. It successfully covered the entire region, thanks to a network of newsrooms in Belgrade, Zagreb, Podgorica, Skopje, Ljubljana and Pristina.
It was the first Al Jazeera television to broadcast a program in a language other than Arabic or English.
Over the years, it has distinguished itself with quality documentaries, investigative stories and shows that provided a deeper insight into social and political processes in the Balkans.
Al Jazeera leaves the Balkans
Television has been present in Sarajevo since September 2010, after taking over the local station NTV Studio 99, whose debts in the amount of 2.3 million convertible marks were settled.
AJB DOC, an international documentary film festival, was founded in 2018 and was held every year in Sarajevo.
The official reason for the shutdown is still unknown.
Instructions and internal announcements from Sarajevo are still awaited from the Belgrade editorial office of AJB, Vreme said.
As reported by Klix, it is assumed that the decision was made in Doha for financial reasons.
The news about the shutdown of Al Jazeera Balkans came as a great surprise in media circles throughout the region, since this television station has for years served as an example of objective, professional and interregional journalism, which successfully connected different countries and perspectives in the area of the former Yugoslavia.
