Ignored or shunned by almost every cable provider in the US, the al-Jazeera English news channel has turned to the internet in an effort to reach American viewers – with much more success.

Since April, when al-Jazeera struck a distribution tie-up with YouTube, the popular videoclip site owned by Google, the channel has received 2m hits and on one day last month was ranked first ahead of Paris Hilton and other staple fare.