This news will likely come as a disappointment to Internet-savvy news junkies, and it’s a departure from Al Jazeera’s current distribution model. Shunned by big cable service providers, Al Jazeera has long streamed its English-language programming live through sites like YouTube as well as dedicated apps for mobile and connected devices.

However, through the acquisition of Current.tv, Al Jazeera is gaining cable distribution to some 40 million households through service providers like Comcast, DirecTV, Dish, Verizon FIOS and AT&T Uverse. Only Time Warner Cable decided to ditch the channel, something that was possible through an exit clause in the event of an ownership change.

And with new carriers, there are new responsibilities. Cable TV providers don’t like to compete with free online distribution, and instead want content to be made available only to authenticated subscribers. It’s too early to tell whether Al Jazeera America will go down that route, but it’s certainly a possibility, as Peter Kafka mused today.

Still, there is good news for cord cutters: Al Jazeera will continue to operate its Al Jazeera English channel as a separate entity to target English-language audiences around the world. And Al Jazeera English will continue to stream online, at least for the time being. Plus, with Al Jazeera staffing up in the U.S., it’s likely that there is going to be more coverage of U.S. news events on Al Jazeera English as well.

Now, there may be some uncertainty during the transition period. Current.tv is supposed to wind down its own programming over the next three months. At that point, it is going to be replaced by an Al Jazeera English feed until Al Jazeera America is fully operational and ready to launch in a few months. A spokesperson couldn’t rule out that during that transition, the Al Jazeera English live stream could become unavailable to U.S. audiences.

But even without a dedicated Al Jazeera America live stream, there is hope that the network is going to offer online audiences more than competitors like CNN, Fox News and MSNBC have been willing to do. In the past few years, Al Jazeera English has embraced a wide range of online tools and platforms, ranging from crowdsourced video subtitles to Reddit chats to social media in crisis hotspots. it’s unlikely that the network is going to ditch these efforts once it launches in the U.S. in honest later this year.

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The apps, announced Monday, will expand the possible outlets for users interested in following reporting from the Middle Eastern news agency. In addition to a live video stream that’s available for viewing, users will also be able to access text-based news reporting, opinion and features from the agency. The apps are also designed to make it easy for users to share stories through social networks.

Due to political uprisings in Egypt and other nations in the Middle East, Al-Jazeera English has garnered increased interest from viewers of late. While Western news organizations scrambled to cover the events, Al-Jazeera had an on-the-ground view of the civilian unrest. Since then, people have continued to tune in, despite the fact that Al-Jazeera is not available through most major cable systems in the U.S. Instead, viewers have turned to watching its coverage online and through a number of other platforms.

Because it is affiliated with Livestation, viewers were able to tune into its live stream on Roku players, the iPhone, Google TV devices and even the Sony PlayStation 3 through third-party applications. (See our piece on 12 Ways to Watch Al-Jazeera English.)

For Al-Jazeera English, going direct to the consumer is probably a smart strategy, particularly since the network has had difficulty locking down deals with major cable providers. Despite ongoing negotiations, the network has yet to announce a carriage deal with Comcast, (s CMCSA) Time Warner Cable or other major TV distributors.

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