Al Gore's Current TV putting itself up for sale

As usual, left-wing media outlets only make money when they’re being liquidated.

Founded in 2005 by Al Gore, Current TV quickly made a name for itself as a go-to source for environmental incoherence, Democrat lunacy, and far-left diatribes. If providing an outlet for liberal kooks was the goal, it succeeded admirably. However, if it was trying to attract viewers, well, it’s had some difficulty. Now, it’s up for sale.

CEO Joel Hyatt recently told the New York Post that “Current has been approached many times by media companies interested in acquiring our company. This year alone, we have had three inquiries. As a consequence, we thought it might be useful to engage expertise to help us evaluate our strategic options.” That’s big-time TV exec speak that roughly translates as “We’re getting ready to dump this turkey.” …

These jokers tried to issue a $100 million IPO a couple of years ago. The scam would have put millions of dollars in their pockets and made it easier to dump this loser. I think the SEC started sniffing around and Gore and his partners dropped the plan. If there were ever any serious buyers for this thing they would have sold it. Kieth Olberman was suing them.

As I noted on another thread: the notion that other media companies are lining up to buy Current TV is ridiculous. In reality, GoreTV has been on the block for at least two years; in fact, Al himself offered to sell the channel to his buddies at Google, who promptly declined. Yeah, they’re lefties, but they know an unsustainable business model when they see one.

Fact is, Current has never attracted anything approaching an audience. For years, they refused to subscribe to the Nielsen ratings, knowing what the data would reveal. When they finally did (under pressure from advertisers), the ratings confirmed what everyone knew: virtually no one was watching Current TV. At their “high water mark” (during Keith Olbermann’s brief tenure), Current drew about 40,000 viewers during one hour of prime time. By comparison, “The O’Reilly Factor” has a nightly audience of 2,000,000+ and the other Fox hosts are all over 1,000,000. Current would kill for even CNN’s subterranean numbers.

Here’s the gaping hole in Mr. Hyatt’s carefully-spun story: if Current is such a hot property, why the urgency to sell? Call it an inconvenient truth, but Current has never made a dime in profit and major investors (like Hyatt) have lost tons of money. However, The Wooden One may actually make money on the sale—assuming they can find a buyer—because Gore brought his name to the project and little else.

Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.

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