Set to Launch August 1, Independent Venture Will Be First National Television
Network Created For, By and With an 18-34 Year-Old Audience;
Google Zeitgeist Data Used to Produce News Feature, 'Google Current'
SAN FRANCISCO, April 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Offering a glimpse of the
independent network first announced at last year's National Cable &
Telecommunications Association convention, former Vice President Al Gore and
entrepreneur Joel Hyatt, joined by executives and on-air talent, revealed this
morning that the name of the new venture, formerly known as INdTV, will be
Current. The unveiling of the much-anticipated network's positioning, logo
and prototype programming reel took place at a press conference in Current's
San Francisco headquarters during NCTA '05.
The first national network created by, for and with an 18-34 year-old
audience, Current will offer 24 hours of programming in a unique, short-form
content format when it premieres August 1. Current will invite audiences to
move beyond their roles as viewers to become active collaborators, encouraging
them to help shape the network's content and fulfill its mission -- to serve
as a TV platform where the voices of young adults can be heard.
"The Internet opened a floodgate for young people whose passions are
finally being heard, but TV hasn't followed suit. Young adults have a
powerful voice, but you can't hear that voice on television ... yet," said
Gore, who serves as the network's chairman of the board. "We intend to change
that with Current, giving those who crave the empowerment of the Web the same
opportunity for expression on television. We want to transform the television
medium itself, giving a national platform to those who are hungry to help
create the TV they want to watch."
The participatory model of Current marks a giant leap in seven decades of
television. "Until now, the notion of viewer participation has been limited
to sending a tape to 'America's Funniest Home Videos,' calling an interview
show, taking part in an instant poll, or voting someone off an island," added
Gore. "We're creating a powerful new brand of television that doesn't treat
audiences as merely viewers, but as collaborators."
Promising a slate of programming that's smart, fun and fearless (as a
truly independent network), Current seeks to cater to the Internet
generation's need for choice and control. Reflective of its name, it will
serve up the most current information on the people, places and happenings of
interest to viewers 18-34, a demographic that no longer relates to traditional
news.
Taking its cues from their media consumption habits, Current will offer
short-form programming in the TV equivalent of an iPod shuffle. Its "pods"
will be 15-second to five-minute segments that range from the hottest trends
in technology, fashion, television, music and videogames, to pressing issues
such as the environment, relationships, spirituality, finance, politics and
parenting, subjects that young adults can rarely find on television. Pod
segments include "Current Playlist" (music for the digital generation),
"Current Parent" (advice to first-timers), "Current Gigs" (career
guidance) and "Current Soul" (trends in spiritual awakening). Drawing from
audience submissions are such pods as "Current Courage" (profiles of heroism
and altruism), "Current Video" (video clips from the next Spielbergs or Spike
Jonzes) and "Current Rant" (inviting viewers to let off steam).
"Google Current," built using samplings of popular Google search data,
including from Google Zeitgeist, complements the free-flowing pod format with
news updates each half-hour. Thirty seconds to three minutes in length, these
segments buck conventional news practices by reporting not on what media
editors decide is "news," but on the topics people are actually searching for
right now. So news isn't what the network thinks you should know, but what
the world is searching to learn.
"We're pleased to collaborate with the entire Current team to help this
network make the world's information more accessible," said Sergey Brin,
Google's co-founder and president of Technology. "Current is an exciting new
direction for TV programming that enables any viewer to have the opportunity
to broadcast their video to the world," said Larry Page, Google's co-founder
and president of Products.
Guided by young hosts set in a club-like atmosphere, Current's free-
flowing programming will include both professionally produced segments and
viewer-created content. Current viewers will be able to easily upload their
own segments through the network's online "Current Studio," available through
the website (
http://www.current.tv). These submissions will be assessed and ranked
by other viewers, potentially voting the best ones onto the air. To
facilitate their participation, Current also plans to launch a comprehensive
online training program developed by some of the best young creatives in the
industry. It will provide expert-led modules on storytelling, shooting and
editing, effectively teaching anyone with a digital video camera and computer
how to produce segments. Through this first-of-its-kind online training
program, the network seeks to cultivate a national, and eventually global,
coterie of "Current Journalists" (CJs).
In May 2004, Current laid the foundation for its national presence when
the company's founders acquired Newsworld International (NWI), a 24-hour
channel dedicated to global news produced by The Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation. Current will build on NWI's reach into nearly 20 million
subscriber households in the U.S. with carriage agreements on DirecTV's "Total
Choice" tier, Time Warner Cable's basic digital tier, and Comcast systems in
key markets.
Current is led by a talented executive team with deep experience in
television news, entertainment, business, finance, advertising sales,
marketing and youth culture. They include: Al Gore (Chairman of the Board),
the former two-term Vice President who brings a lifetime of experience in
public policy, technology and media to the network, leading Administration
policies on telecommunications and actively championing causes such as the
growth of the Internet; Joel Hyatt (Chief Executive Officer), recognized by
Business Week as one of the top 50 business leaders in the country for his
entrepreneurial ventures Hyatt Legal Services, which provided low-cost
services to families, and Hyatt Legal Plans, which became America's largest
provider of employer-sponsored group legal plans (acquired by Met Life in
1997); Mark Goldman (Chief Operating Officer), a former MCA Television
executive recruited by News Corp. to launch Sky Latin America Partners,
overseeing branding and programming strategies, the construction of its
digital broadcast facility and over $700 million of financing transactions;
David Neuman (President, Programming), a former NBC executive in charge of
comedy including "The Cosby Show," "Cheers" and "Family Ties," subsequently
president of programming for Channel One, president of Walt Disney Television
and Touchstone Television and, most recently, chief programming officer at
CNN, spearheading the revamping of the network's primetime strategy and the
hiring of Anderson Cooper, Soledad O'Brien and Paula Zahn; Anne Kallin Zehren
(President, Sales and Marketing), who as launch publisher of the award-winning
Teen People built it into the fastest-ever magazine to reach profitability and
one of the fastest growing magazines of all time, previously serving as
associate publisher of marketing of Glamour, director of marketing at
Newsweek, and director of corporate/employee communications at NBC; and Joanna
Drake Earl (Senior VP, Online Studio), who advised the heads of Hollywood's
leading studios and Silicon Valley's most powerful tech firms as a management
consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton, also serving as vice president of media
partnerships for a broadband startup and heading the content strategy group
for the digital entertainment systems company MOXI, now Digeo.
Among Current's young on-air talent is Gotham Chopra (host of "Current
Soul," an exploration of spirituality from a young perspective), a former
Channel One News anchor who has reported from around the world and interviewed
leaders including Bill Clinton and the Dalai Lama, wrote three published works
including the comic book Bulletproof Monk (serving as executive producer of
the film adaptation), and was called one of the "most powerful and
influential" South Asians worth watching by Newsweek; Conor Knighton (host &
associate producer of Google Current), who, while pursuing a degree in film
studies and writing from Yale, wrote for the books division of the Yale Daily
News and created much-ballyhooed sketch comedy, subsequently heading to L.A.
to pursue a career in television, acting in various film and TV roles, working
as a freelance writer and proving his esoteric knowledge by winning $13,400 on
the game show "Pyramid"; and Laura Ling (news producer and on-air host), an
award-winning producer whose work for Channel One News took her to more than
two-dozen, sometimes war-torn countries (receiving unprecedented access from
the Chinese government to look at China's growing AIDS epidemic), also serving
as co-creator of the MTV issue-oriented documentary series "Breaking It Down,"
and producing other hard-hitting segments for ABC's "Nightline," NBC, the WB
and PBS.
Given its innovative mission to breed a new species of TV, network co-
founder Joel Hyatt recognizes the wisdom of Orson Welles, who once said,
"Don't give them what you think they want. Give them what they never thought
was possible." Hyatt adds, "Young people believe it isn't possible to
participate in the creation of television because the medium is not accessible
to them. And traditional TV networks aren't willing or able to empower their
viewers. Current is unleashing the creativity of young people, enabling their
voice to be heard and their stories to be shared. What's possible just got a
lot more exciting."