Posted on 08/29/2005 9:23:00 AM PDT by dukeman
Al Gore's television network Current-TV, which he bought with other investors, is not, as many assumed, a liberal version of Fox News. Nor does it have "shows" in any sense of the word.
So what is it? Think MTV without the music. Or commercials without a product to sell.
Programming on Current-TV consists of "pods," short documentary features, many of them sent in by viewers. In between are "lifestyle" features—updates on new record releases and hip art show openings—as well as graphical quizzes (what is better for you, cola or lemonade?) and "Google Current," showing the top five internet searches of the moment.
The killer concept: Nothing lasts more than seven minutes.
Thus, Current-TV gears itself to the alleged short attention spans of today's young channel surfers. The big gimmick is that viewers are encouraged to make their own videos, then submit them via the internet. That makes for television democracy, in which everyone is encouraged to become a "citizen-journalist."
Many of the viewer-supplied "pods" are painfully trivial and self-indulgent. The story of a humanitarian trip to Sierra Leone ends up focusing on rap music. Yet some are painfully interesting. An 18-year-old Eastern European who works for a pornographic "sex-cam" site made a plaintive video in which she tells of her exploitation (she makes $1 to $5 a day for 12 to 18 hours of "work") and her palpable misery ("Upside? I never have to leave my bed. Downside? Everything else").
Is this the invention of Al Gore the liberal? Only in the sense that its mentality favors the new, the fashionable, and the bohemian. Young conservatives and Christians should send in their videos, and we'll see if they get on Current-TV. That will be the test of how nonpartisan and nonideological it really is.
Programming on Current-TV consists of "pods," short documentary features, many of them sent in by viewers. In between are "lifestyle" features—updates on new record releases and hip art show openings—as well as graphical quizzes (what is better for you, cola or lemonade?) and "Google Current," showing the top five internet searches of the moment.
The killer concept: Nothing lasts more than seven minutes.
This sounds exactly the horrifying, pharmaceutical-company-produced, tape loops they play on the television in the waiting room of my doctor’s office.
What about Dingell Norwood?
There's a jelly joke waiting to be told about this channel, but I can't think of it quite yet.
That figures...because I always suspected that Gore was a "pod person".
I already quipped that it was "Public access cable without the excitement".
WHAT ABOUT DINGELL NORWOOD?!?!?!?
(does anyone have that clip? Oh boy, I forgot how hillarious that was!)
"Young conservatives and Christians should send in their videos, and we'll see if they get on Current-TV"
or.. we could ignore it.
Sounds like (it) hit, and is busting all to hell.
The liberal left has never came to grips with the fact that their base is the most uninformed and ignorant sector of American society.
They can never appeal to the lowest common (democrat) denominator if they don't factor in, perversion, sex, rap and mind altering drugs as their mainstay programing.
The author's suggestion at the end of his article is interesting. I wonder what would happen?
It's TV for a generation of young people who don't have the attention span to even make it through a moronic, half-hour sitcom. Yet, as someone here pointed out, the "pods" that they play are all representative of the young, liberal, self-absorbed,, spoiled-brat mindset of its target audience. It presupposes that no other valid worldview exists. It's a subtle form of political and social intolerance presented in the guise of entertainment.
Something else that never lasted longer than 7 minutes: Looney Tunes shorts.
Someone get me "Merry Go Round Broke Down," in C major.
Surprised to read that DU wouldn't be a big fan of "GoreTV." Isn't he their hero?
Most of the DUers like Gore, although they do have factions there that prefer others (Clark, Dean, Hillary, etc.). I think they found the format of Gore's channel irritating.
Strictly geared for uneducated teenage morons.
1. Cheap availability of digital video cameras;
2. Widespread (almost universal for basic versions) of digital editing software, and hardware;
3. Access to broadband Internet to send videos in, and
4. Consumer access to broadband to receive the TV broadcast;
that very interesting television could be created and distributed. One can imagine a TV version of Free Republic itself.
"Programming on Current-TV consists of "pods," short documentary features, many of them sent in by viewers. In between are "lifestyle" features?updates on new record releases and hip art show openings...."
Al has re-invented PBS but with private $
It won't last...unless Al steals funds from orphans and widows... like ErrAmerica.
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