This IHT story looks at al-Jazeera's efforts to sell its new English-language international service.

Some excerpts:

Fruit cups and tea were served, and then came the matinee feature: a documentary about the Arabic broadcaster Al Jazeera, full of American bomb bursts and bloodied and bandaged Iraqi children.

At an international trade show for television programming on the French Riviera recently, Al Jazeera presented the documentary, "Control Room," to promote an English-language news channel it plans to introduce next year. While the setting, a salon in the Majestic Hotel, suggested just another ambitious broadcaster starting a new service, the graphic images on the screen demonstrated how Al Jazeera, scourge of the Pentagon and some Middle Eastern governments, is decidedly different.

Al Jazeera, which styles itself as an independent voice in a turbulent region that is short on press freedom, is shaping its new channel, Al Jazeera International, with the same spirit: outspoken and unwilling, in its own words, "to sanitize war." Al Jazeera's aggressive journalistic style has led to its reporters' being banned from Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. It has also inspired new competition from the likes of the BBC, which announced plans last week to start a news channel in Arabic.

But Al Jazeera's approach complicates the job of selling the English-language service to broadcast outlets and potential advertisers. Only days after the convention in Cannes, the Arabic-language channel broadcast a videotape from Osama bin Laden's No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the latest in a series of videos from Al Qaeda leaders shown on Al Jazeera. A Spanish court recently convicted one of the channel's reporters of collaborating with the terrorist organization, a decision that the broadcaster is appealing.

With the expected start of Al Jazeera International about six months away, the broadcaster faces some pressing questions: Given the notoriety of Al Jazeera, will the English-language service be able to persuade enough satellite and cable services to carry it, particularly in the United States market? Will advertisers sign up, or will they prefer to steer clear of associations with Al Jazeera?