Gore_in_viet_nam_w_rifle
Posted on 04/04/2005 5:55:34 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN FRANCISCO - In an effort to lure an Internet-savvy generation back to their television sets, former Vice President Al Gore joined investors Monday to announce the creation of Current, a cable TV channel that will target younger viewers with a blend of news, culture and personal videos.
Gore will serve as chairman of the board of the new venture, which will be based in San Francisco. He and Joel Hyatt, the founder of Hyatt Legal Services who will serve as Current's chief executive, assembled an investment team that paid $70 million last year to acquire the Newsworld International channel from Vivendi International.
The channel, to launch Aug. 1, will remain privately financed and initially will be available in 19 million cable-subscriber homes.
Gore and Hyatt described how the channel will try to engage viewers ages 18 to 34 using the Web's signature blend of interactivity and populism. The move comes as advertisers and television executives are scrambling to stop the prized marketing demographic from abandoning TV for the Internet and other forms of new media.
Gore, dressed in a charcoal gray suit and no tie, stood on stage with Current's creative team - a multicultural group of TV producers the same age as his children. He said the venture was dedicated to giving young people a voice.
"We're about empowering this generation ... to engage in the dialogue of democracy and tell the story of what's going on in their lives in the dominant media of our time," Gore, 57, said.
Central to their strategy is inviting Current's viewers to supply their own video content and helping them produce it using editing tools that Current will make available on its Web site. That video, which the Current team is calling Viewer Contributed Content or VC-squared, eventually will comprise more than half the programming seen on the channel.
The rest will be more traditional shows developed under the direction of David Neuman, Current's president of programming, whose resume includes stints at CNN and Walt Disney Television. Planned segments include "Current Soul," an exploration of spirituality, and "Current Parent," advice for first-time moms and dads.
The channel also has established a partnership with the Google search engine, Google Current, to provide twice-an-hour updates on viewers' top Internet searches.
Sergey Brin, the 31-year old multibillionaire co-founder of Google, praised the channel as an effective way to distribute video in a way that frees it from the limited bandwidth and other technological challenges that has kept it from being widely available on the Web.
"The one remaining area where it's been hard as both a contributor and as viewer of user-driven content is video," Brin said. "Given that Current has taken on this challenge ... I think this could be a really fantastic experience. I'm looking forward to a much greater breadth of TV viewing."
Gore said his interest in the venture stemmed from a frustration that television, because of the high cost of cameras, studios and production, had long been a "one-way" medium dominated by large media companies. Innovations in digital video have put those tools in the hands of young people, he said.
"The $100,000 television camera has become a $3,000 high-definition camera, and the $250,000 editing console has become a $1,000 Apple computer program," Gore said. "The five-person crew can be one young woman in her twenties with something the size of a handbag."
Gore, who narrowly lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, has publicly complained about the number of conservative voices dominating the airwaves. Yet he insisted that Current will have no political agenda.
"We have no intention of being a Democratic channel, a liberal channel or the TV version of Air America," Gore said, referring to the fledgling liberal radio network. "It is not in any way an ideological, much less partisan point of view in any respect. It will have the point of view of the young generation."
In its first contest judging video submissions to the channel, Current awarded a $15,000 prize to three filmmakers who produced a funny segment poking fun at predictable and often misleading presidential campaign ads.
ON THE NET
www.current.tv
put it in a lock box al.
Gore_in_viet_nam_w_rifle
Al, Al, Al.
Trying to make a TV channel look like the web will not work.
You should know better.
No he shouldn't.
He Al Gore, he's an idiot.
Pull!
Gore should know better, didn't he say he invented the internet?
But, the good news is that they have a built in monitor and censure all the bad stuff out---remember, she was big on grading those movies and videos---
I don't think Tipper has seen Nickolodean and Disney lately, some of the cartoons and shows my granddaughter watches have a lot of scatological humor and sex gags for kids---
So IMHO, if Tipper is the vice cop, for 18-34 year olds it is gonna be bbbbbbbbbbbboooriiiiiiingg!!!
Tipper Gore....Joan Kennedy of the future.
Will this ad be classified as more of the "Dumbing down of America"?
Tipper Gore...Rosemary Kennedy of the present.
Former Vice President Al Gore gestures during a news conference at IndTV offices in San Francisco, Monday, April 4, 2005 as he unveils the new television network, Current, aimed at young, hip and liberal viewers. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
FMCDH(BITS)
Actually, that could be a real attention-getter. Seriously. People watch things like stupid pet tricks, fear factor, make-overs, and so on.
I wouldn't count them out. Of course, they won't get any Dem votes, but they just might get an audience.
And, I have no intention of being the Tooth Fairy, even though I sprout wings and start leaving quarters under childrens' pillows.
sheesh!
Hopefully, these idiots will continue to waste millions of dollars before giving buddah bore the boot.
The audience they want to attract, is the demographic most likely to torrent any successful series Current produces, meaning they have no chance at syndication or even maintaining viewership during a rerun. Good luck with rights and ad revenues, Al.
Wait until spambotters take over the Current Google search engine. I'd give it 3 days at most before \/|4GRA becomes the top search word.
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