from San Francisco Chronicle: Al Gore never said he invented the Internet. But the new San Francisco-based cable TV network he’s heading promises to transform television by plugging it into the Internet.
Current, the name of Gore’s enterprise, hopes to do that by airing a shuffle of short news features, some produced by the network but many submitted online by viewers. Current will also air segments every half hour showing TV viewers what Google searchers are tapping into at that moment — everything from current events to tourist destinations. It’s all directed at a generation that thinks nothing of plugging into more than one media outlet at once.
Current plans to air short-form, fast-paced segments and snippets called “pods” rather than shows. Tailored for the short attention span, they will be anywhere from 15 seconds to five minutes long.
The short-form format, pioneered by MTV, “is consistent with the fast- paced, two-screen-consuming-at-a-time nature of this audience,” said Current Programming President David Neuman, a former NBC executive and former president of Walt Disney Television and Touchstone Pictures.
Those hoping for a liberal network to balance the conservatism of Fox won’t find it here.
“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.”
