[LargelyALurker]

I'd doubt theyd go through the trouble of creating Al Jazeera America and then shut the whole thing down after 3 years if it was all about soft power. It was a financial disaster. What a fiasco that was. I think they arent just going to throw money away if it’s not needed.  And they failed to get the AJE carriage on many cable systems in the US. They have a horrible reputation. Mostly from the Arabic service airing hostage and beheading videos back in the day. The brand never recovered.

Are you sure you’re thinking of Al Jazeera airing those videos? I had in my mind it was other Arabic news channels, maybe Al Arabiya? A quick look at their respective Wikipedia pages seems to confirm this.

Like BBC World Service, soft power only works when you can get an audience, so no surprise they gave up on a market where that just wasn’t happening.