Al Gore’s Creative Impulses Target Television

By Linda Orlando

Last fall saw the debut of a new cable television channel designed by Al Gore, the former Vice President of the United States. As everyone knows, Gore created the Internet, so his foray into linking cable television to the Internet is bound to be a huge hit. Current TV is the product of Gore’s investor group buying the cable channel Newsworld International, and changing the channel into Current TV. Gore’s fellow investors included financier Richard Blum, husband of California Senator Dianne Feinstein, Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy, and former MTV and AOL executive Bob Pittman. They reportedly bought the network from Vivendi Universal for about $70 million.

Gore’s new network seems like any other hip, youth-oriented cable channel except for one thing: many of the stories told on the channel come from viewers. The channel features short programs called "pods," which are often created by regular people and not just professional producers. The pods are sent to the network through its website, Gore said, "to help us make the viewer-created content that will be a large and growing part of what we put on the air." The pods, tailored for an audience with a short attention span, last anywhere from 15 seconds to 5 minutes long and cover a wide variety of subjects including music, fashion, travel, entertainment, relationships, and politics. Programming is targeted toward 18- to 34-year old viewers. According to the channel’s website, viewers will see "profiles of interesting people on the rise, intelligence on trends as they spring up around us, and international news from new perspectives."

Some industry analysts are calling Current TV a turning point in the evolution of television because of its strategy of inviting viewers to contribute content for millions of people to see. The channel calls such content "viewer-created" content, or VC2. Right now the VC2 spots comprise about 30% of the channel’s programs. The videos created by viewers aren’t automatically shown, though; when a viewer uploads a video to Current TV’s website, everyone in the online community can vote on which ones should be shown on the air, and a network editor gives the final thumbs-up. Online training is even available from the site to help viewers develop the necessary skills to make television programs.

Gore serves enthusiastically as Current TV’s chairman. "Less than eight months ago, we launched a new network that sought to do something extraordinary––to involve young adults in helping to create the television they want to watch," said Gore. Although there is no proof that Gore claimed inventing the Internet, he has no problem claiming that he is changing the face of television by connecting it to the Internet. "Those who are using the Internet are often watching TV at the same time, '' said the former vice president, who's chairman of the board of Current, the new independent cable venture pitched at audiences advertisers covet -- people 18 to 34 years old. "Part of our objective is to connect those two experiences.'' In addition to the VC2 shorts, Current will also air a segment every 30 minutes showing the viewing audience what topics are currently being searched on Google.

Despite Al Gore’s high-profile image as a liberal politician, viewers who expect Current TV to have a political agenda will be surprised. "We have no intention of creating a Democratic channel, a liberal channel, a TV version of Air America," Gore said. "That's not what we're about. We're about empowering this generation of young people in their 20s to engage in a dialogue of democracy and to tell the stories about what's going on in their lives using the dominant medium of our time.''

When Current TV was launched, it was available to about 500,000 Comcast customers. Because of the new distribution agreement with Comcast, as of June 1 the channel will be distributed on nearly all of Comcast’s digital cable services.