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 Balkans to allow an outlet with such policy to own a station that broadcasts nationally in Serbia". The opposition Serbian Radical Party (SRS) called on the Serbian Broadcasting Agency (RRA) not to allow the Al Jazeera Balkans' purchase of TV Avala due to the "anti-Serb campaign led by the Al Jazeera director for the Balkans, Goran Milić". Speaking at party's press conference, SRS presidency collegium member Vjerica Radeta said: "Milić has never ceased with his anti-Serb campaign, but the most scandalous of all is that the requirement to get a job at this station is accepting Kosovo as an independent state".