In a warren of offices at a former bank building near Madison Square Garden, dozens of journalists are at work on gleaming new electronic equipment, ready to turn their test runs of Al-Jazeera America into the real thing. 
 
 This undated publicity image released by Al-Jazeera America shows news anchor John Seigenthaler. Seigenthaler will host Al-Jazeera America’s central nightly newscast when the network goes on the air next... (Associated Press) 
 
 The Qatar-based news organization will finally establish a firm foothold on American television Tuesday after a decade of trying. At 3 p.m. EDT, Al Gore's former Current TV will turn out the lights in more than 45 million TV homes, replaced by the new U.S. affiliate of Al-Jazeera. 
 
 The network has hired many veterans of U.S. television, including John Seigenthaler, Joie Chen, Antonio Mora and Sheila MacVicar, and is promising a meaty diet of news that it believes will contrast with the opinionated talk that dominates American news networks. 
 
 "We're breaking in with something that we think is unique and are confident, with our guts and some research, that the American people are looking for," said Kate O'Brian, the former ABC News executive who is now Al-Jazeera America's president. 
 
 The dozens of flat-screen TVs and occupied desks scattered around marble pillars in AJA's New York office indicate this is no cheap startup. And this is temporary; the network is looking for a larger office in New York but wanted to start quickly after buying out Current in January. Bureaus are also being established in 11 other American cities. 
 
 Until Al-Jazeera America revealed a prime-time schedule last week, there were few indications of what the network would look like. Scheduled shows include a nightly newscast anchored by Seigenthaler, a newsmagazine hosted by Chen, a news talk show with Mora and a business program starring Ali Velshi. 
 
 It's still not clear what will be shown in the mornings and whether much of the broadcast day will be devoted to documentary-style programming or live news. 
 
 With its domestic bureaus, AJA will seek out stories beyond the towers of New York and government buildings in Washington, said Ehab Al Shihabi, the network's interim CEO. Besides those two cities, bureaus are located in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Detroit, Chicago, Denver, Miami, Seattle, Nashville, Tenn., and New Orleans. 
 
 "I am here because the promise of doing good work is just exceptional," said David Doss, a veteran of ABC, NBC and CNN who is Al-Jazeera America's senior vice president of news programming. 
 
 Al-Jazeera is well-established overseas, and the American network will take advantage of its 70 bureaus. But executives have been careful to stress that AJA will be geared toward American tastes. They have a careful line to walk: Al-Jazeera doesn't want to remind Americans of when Bush administration officials questioned its independence in the months after the terrorist attacks, and the years when American cable operators wanted nothing to do it. Tight security is evident at the New York office. A visitor last week needed to go through an airport-style metal detector and be checked by two guards. 
 
 The American launch has caused some internal dissension. A memo to his bosses from Marwan Bishara, an Al-Jazeera political analyst, suggested that executives have gone too far to ingratiate themselves with a U.S. audience. "How have we moved from the main idea that the strength of (Al-Jazeera) lies in the diversity, plurality and even accents of its journalists to a channel where only Americans work?" Bishara wrote, his memo made public by The Guardian newspaper in England. 
 
 Bishara said that asking potential viewers in a poll whether they consider Al-Jazeera to be anti-American sends a bad message. 
 
 Bishara worries that Al-Jazeera will water down its journalism for an American audience, "and nothing could be further from the truth," said Paul Eedle, deputy launch manager. Being bold _ not bland _ is the secret to success, he said. 
 
 The Al-Jazeera English network, which has disseminated its programming online and over some widely scattered cable systems during the past decade, is generally straightforward in its news coverage, said Philip Seib, a professor of journalism and public policy at the University of Southern California, who has written a book about Al-Jazeera. 
 
 "That's what's encouraging about Al-Jazeera America," Seib said. A focus on technology and science-oriented programs indicate an effort to reach smart, younger viewers, he said. 
 
 Dave Marash, a former Al-Jazeera English reporter, said he believes that AJA will be able to produce the solid news reporting it is counting on to distinguish itself from its competition. 
 
 "Almost all of their hires are respectable people with real careers and real records," Marash said. "Several are flat-out outstanding _ Sheila MacVicar is outstanding. I'm optimistic." 
 
 AJA will be available in less than half of American homes at its launch. The Time Warner cable system, for example, dropped Current when the sale was announced. AJA is negotiating with Time Warner and carriers like Cablevision that didn't carry Current in the first place, to get in more homes. But people at the network expect a wait-and-see period. 
 
 Another handicap is the channel's location on cable systems. Current was often given a high-numbered channel that makes it much less likely that viewers would find it by chance; AJA said it is working to improve that. 
 
 Even with Al-Jazeera rarely available on TV in the U.S., the Al-Jazeera English network had a substantial following online. But that will end; as a condition of being carried on cable systems, Al-Jazeera will no longer be able to send out a live Internet stream of its programming. 
 
 That seems unwise, Marash said. Essentially, Al-Jazeera will be trading a young and growing audience online _ the distribution form that best represents the industry's future _ for a smaller, older television audience, he said. 
 
 "None of this makes any sense unless you talk about it in the context of ego," Marash said. 
 
 AJA has said little about its online plans. Al Shihabi said the company's goal is to get near-universal carriage on television, making the worries about the online audience moot. 
 
 "We are not coming here to compete," Al Shihabi said. "We are coming here to win." 
 
 ___ 
 
 EDITOR'S NOTE _ David Bauder can be reached at dbauder(at)ap.org or on Twitter (at)dbauder. His work can be found at http:bigstory.ap.org/content/david-bauder. ||||| Would-be competitors at big broadcast news divisions like NBC and established cable news channels like CNN have mostly shrugged at the start-up. A senior television news executive predicted that Al Jazeera America would, at the outset, receive even lower ratings than the channel it is replacing, Current TV . 
 
 Last month the lame-duck Current had about 24,000 viewers in prime time, according to Nielsen data; Fox News had 1.3 million. 
 
 Al Jazeera acquired Current TV for $500 million in January to start an American channel, after trying unsuccessfully for years to win cable and satellite carriage for its English-language international news channel. 
 
 But with carriage comes concessions. Since distributors discourage their partners from giving programming away on the Internet, Al Jazeera will have to block American users from the live streams of its programming that tend to be popular in periods of tumult overseas. 
 
 Al Jazeera will start in about 48 million of the country’s roughly 100 million homes that subscribe to television. 
 
 It is in talks with Time Warner Cable , which publicly dropped Current TV upon Al Jazeera’s acquisition. Meanwhile, one of Al Jazeera’s overseas rivals, the British Broadcasting Corporation , continues to press for wider carriage of BBC World News in America. 
 
 What is unique about Al Jazeera — its seemingly limitless financing from an oil- and gas-rich government — may be its biggest advantage and its most-remarked-upon weakness. 
 
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 With a staff of 900, including 400 newsroom employees, it is one of the most significant investments in television journalism in modern times. 
 
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 Paul Eedle, an Al Jazeera English executive who is helping to start the channel, would not comment on the total budget, but said hundreds of millions of dollars were being spent. “We’re here because we think our journalistic mission has something to offer America,” he said. 
 
 Many contend Qatar’s geopolitical aims are a motivator, too. The Al Jazeera name still arouses deep suspicion in some Americans, mostly because of the period immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when Al Jazeera broadcast messages from Osama bin Laden and was demonized by Bush administration officials as anti-American. 
 
 Al Jazeera America officials rebut questions about whether its brand name will hurt its chances on cable by invoking other foreign brands, like Honda , that are now viewed favorably in the United States. 
 
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 For now, some big sponsors appear to be skittish; Al Jazeera declined to name any major advertisers. 
 
 It has cast its lower commercial load — about six minutes an hour, compared with more than 15 minutes an hour on another news channels — as a perk for viewers. “Not cluttering the news with commercials,” Mr. Al Shihabi said after a studio tour in New York on Thursday. 
 
 He was swarmed by reporters, evincing widespread interest — at least among journalists — in the premiere of the channel. 
 
 “I am reminded of three other news organization launches in the U.S. that were transformative,” Bob Meyers, president of the National Press Foundation, wrote in a blog post last week. “One was the launch of CNN on June 1, 1980; the second was the launch of Bloomberg News in 1990; and the third was the launch of Politico in 2007.” 
 
 He suggested that Al Jazeera America was in the same category, saying, “Could be fun, and even beneficial, to watch.” 
 
 On Tuesday, the anchors will look vaguely familiar: most have histories at one or more of the major American television networks. Some of them, like John Seigenthaler, had left the business and said they thought they would not take another job in television, until Al Jazeera came along. 
 
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 “They said: ‘We want to do real news. We want to give it context and perspective and make it balanced and in-depth.’ I thought, ‘Gee, this is a dream come true,’ ” he said. 
 
 Mr. Seigenthaler (the anchor of the weekend editions of “NBC Nightly News” until 2007) will kick off prime time at 8 p.m. with a straightforward newscast. “America Tonight,” a newsmagazine, will follow at 9 p.m. It will be hosted by Joie Chen (a CBS News correspondent until 2008), and has been billed as Al Jazeera’s flagship program. Antonio Mora (a former “Good Morning America” news anchor who spent the last 10 years at local stations) will take over at 10 p.m. with a talk show called “Consider This.” 
 
 Al Jazeera’s approach — more time for more serious journalism — is an implicit criticism of the other options for news on television. 
 
 Mr. Mora said he had sensed far less commercial pressure at Al Jazeera than at local stations where he had worked. “There’s a sense here of the news being a public trust,” he said. 
 
 None of the anchors said they had felt any slant in coverage plans, pro-Qatar or otherwise, despite accounts from some former Al Jazeera English employees of interference from above. 
 
 In interviews, the anchors made offhand remarks that it is hard to imagine counterparts at other networks making. For instance, Ms. Chen asked: “How big does our audience need to be? I don’t know. Nobody talks about that here.” 
 
 She was scheduled to be in South Dakota over the weekend, filing stories from an Indian reservation. 
 
 “That’s not even a pitch I would have made in my old newsroom,” she said, because of budget limitations. “Here, we never have any debate about resources,” she said. “It’s like this: ‘Is that a good story?’ ‘Yes, it’s a good story.’ ‘Then go tell it.’ ” ||||| Network will be broadcast across nearly 50m homes in the US on Tuesday with ambitious effort to provide quality in-depth content 
 
 In a 24-hour cable news world where sensationalist reporting, warring talking-heads and shrinking staff reign supreme, Al Jazeera America is launching an ambitious effort to provide quality, in-depth content on Tuesday. 
 
 "There will be less opinion, less yelling and fewer celebrity sightings," the channel's acting chief executive, Ehab al-Shihabi, told reporters on a conference call last week. If the operation fulfills this claim, it will be sitting opposite the popular networks who have made their millions on this formula. 
 
 Al Jazeera America will be available to nearly half of the country's 100 million television subscribers on Tuesday afternoon when it overtakes Current TV's distribution network, which it acquired in January for $500m. By taking over the station, Al Jazeera America is susceptible to the risks of having a high-numbered channel far from its competitors grouped together in the lower, more accessible, digits. 
 
 American cable companies have been reluctant to include Al Jazeera in their television packages, because of what some commentators call an "anti-American" bias. Marwan Bishara, one of the network's most prominent journalists, voiced fears that the network will sacrifice its bold approach to assuage these criticisms in an extensive email sent to company executives in June. 
 
 It also has to let go of Al Jazeera English, currently available to a small amount of US cable subscribers and to stream online until Tuesday. During crises in the Middle East, the channel and online stream are one of the few resources Americans have providing live, extensive coverage of events. 
 
 During the Arab Spring, the live stream had more than 1.6m views and the network was endorsed by Hillary Clinton, then the US secretary of state, who called its coverage "real news." 
 
 This service will be missed as events continue to unfold in Egypt, which has seen violent unrest since president Mohammed Morsi was ousted in July. 
 
 In an era of rapidly declining journalism jobs and dismal news profits, the network has built up an unusually large outfit of 900 employees – 400 of whom are on the news team – an extensive network of freelancers and 12 US bureaus, with the potential for more. This is made possible by the oil-rich Qatar government, which funds the news agency. 
 
 Al Jazeera representatives have said the American audience is interested in a more substantive 24-hour news network and are promising content that does just that. 
 
 With only six minutes of commercials per hour – far less than the usual 16 on most US networks – Al Jazeera America will feature documentary films, a hearty online news section and a 16-person investigative reporting team. The latter is particularly unique in a country where the archetype of 24-hour cable news – CNN – recently dissolved its entire investigate team. 
 
 The beta-version of their news site on Monday featured stories on Egypt, Guantanamo Bay and farm workers in Washington – the final of which has been subject to little media coverage. Al-Shihabi and company representatives have said that the intent of Al Jazeera is to create journalism in the public interest instead of "infotainment."
– Al Jazeera America launches this afternoon, and while some analysts believe the channel's entry to cable line-ups is a development as important as the launch of CNN or the Fox News Channel, others wonder if the new channel and its formula of serious, in-depth news will ever be able to attract more than a handful of viewers. The channel has decided to focus heavily on US news, and its "seemingly limitless financing" from the Qatari government may be "its biggest strength and its most remarked-upon weakness," writes Brian Stelter at the New York Times. With 900 staff, it is "one of the most significant investments in TV journalism in modern times," he notes. The channel has bureaus in New York City; Washington, DC; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Dallas; Detroit; Chicago; Denver; Miami; Seattle; Nashville; and New Orleans. The channel's chief executive has promised "less opinion, less yelling, and fewer celebrity sightings," reports the Guardian, which notes that its 16-person investigative team sets it apart from peers like CNN, which recently ditched its entire investigative team. Advertisers, however, seem wary, and AJA will start out with just six minutes of commercials per hour. Former Al Jazeera English reporter Dave Marash believe AJA's focus on solid news will help it make its mark. "Almost all of their hires are respectable people with real careers and real records," he tells the AP. "Several are flat-out outstanding—Sheila MacVicar is outstanding. I'm optimistic." Other major hires include John Seigenthaler, Joie Chen, and Antonio Mora. But the new channel faces plenty of hurdles: It will be available in fewer than half of US homes; and like Current TV, which it replaces, cable systems have given it high-numbered channels unlikely to draw in many channel viewers. Some Americans are still suspicious of the Al Jazeera name, as well.