Al Jazeera November 1996. It offered 6 hours of programming per day; increased to 12 hours by the end of 1997. It was broadcast to the immediate neighborhood as a terrestrial signal, and on cable, as well as through satellites (which was also free to users in the Arab world), although Qatar, and many other Arab countries, barred private individuals from having satellite dishes until 2001. At the time of the Al Jazeera Media Network launch Arabsat was the only satellite broadcasting to the Middle East, and for the first year could only offer Al Jazeera a weak C-band transponder that needed
Al Jazeera Balkans for Al Jazeera to settle in Sarajevo". The June 2011 revelation of Al Jazeera Balkans asking its job applicants to state their personal position/opinion regarding the international status of Kosovo with the answer potentially determining whether they get hired or not while at the same time making a takeover bid for Serbian nationwide television network TV Avala caused a lot of reaction in the country. Slobodan Reljić, former editor-in-chief at the "NIN" magazine, stated: "I'm not particularly shocked at the way Al Jazeera Balkans picks its staff because contemporary global media outlets have given up on objective journalism. AJB's going