Al Jazeera 500 million Qatari riyals (US$137 million) from the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa. By securing its funding through loans or grants rather than direct government subsidies, the channel seeks to maintain independent editorial policy. The channel began broadcasting in late 1996, with many staff joining from the BBC World Service's Saudi-co-owned Arabic-language TV station, which had shut down on 1 April 1996 after two years of operation because of censorship demands by the Saudi Arabian government. The Al Jazeera logo is a decorative representation of the network's name written using Arabic calligraphy. It was selected by the station's
Al Jazeera and influence, some scholars including Adel Iskandar have described the station as a transformation of the very definition of "alternative media." Al Jazeera presents a new direction in the discourse of global news flow and shows voices underrepresented by traditional mainstream media regardless global imbalances in the flow of information. In 2011 Al Jazeera Media Network launched Al Jazeera Balkans based in Sarajevo and serving Bosnia and Herzegovina in Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian. The look and feel of the network is similar to Al Jazeera English. Al Jazeera launched a Turkish-language news website in 2014; it was shut down on