current tv

My favorite TV station won an Emmy last night, which was received by the founders of Current TV, Joel Hyatt and eco-royalty Al Gore.

The station is like watching an informative version of YouTube on TV. Videos are made by people all around the world, are submitted to the Current.TV website, and voted upon. The best and favorite videos get on the air. And the producers get paid.

It's really opening up the conversation of what is newsworthy and brings stories to viewers that would never otherwise be seen, like mini-documentaries of actual "blood diamond" mines, or looking at torture techniques like waterboarding.

If you aren't yet familiar with Current, definitely take a moment to check it out. You'll need digital cable or satellite: DirecTV channel 366, Comcast 107, Dish 196, AT&T 189.

You'll find pods on almost every topic imaginable. I worked on one with my friends at Spiral, called Earthrace - about the biodiesel boat that tried to break the round-the-world record. Check it out.

And the winner is…
We watched the Emmy Awards last night (for what it's worth: yay, 30 Rock!), and the award shows fellating Al Gore continues, this time for Current TV, which won for Best Interactive Programming or Best iWorld Wide Web Doing God's Work or something inane like that.

Also: really? Why? Aside from having sweet Mission Bay offices -- with self-consciously placed arcade games in their front windows -- Current TV takes itself way too seriously to be important. They have a ton of information (it's nearly all user-generated), none of it interesting. Or at least, so overwhelmingly varied and uncategorized, it's impossible to match users to the content they want. And the homepage scares us.

Have any of you had success with Current TV as being either informative or pleasantly time-wasting? Because we haven't.
Current TV is an Emmy award winning independent media company led by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, and businessman Joel Hyatt. The cable television network went on the air at midnight EDT (4:00 UTC) on the morning of August 1, 2005. A second network, operated in the United Kingdom and Ireland started its operation March 12, 2007 for Sky and Virgin Media subscribers.

Current features "pods", or short programs, of which 30% are created by viewers and users.

An experimental Canadian show called ZeD, was the first programmed broadcast of user-generated video content.[1] Other inspiration for Current TV came from a 1990s series on MTV called UNfiltered, where the network sent cameras to viewers in order to report on stories they thought were important. Current TV is the first 24-hour network based around viewer-created content, which it dubs VC2.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Six months after grabbing Oscar glory for his eco-documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," former Vice President Al Gore collected an Emmy Award on Sunday for his fledgling youth-oriented cable network, Current TV.

The network, which launched in 2005 with video clips and other short programs made by viewers, received the "interactive television services" Emmy, a noncompetitive award picked by a panel of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

"We are trying to open up the television medium so viewers can help to make television ... and reclaim democracy," Gore said in accepting the award, given Sunday for the first time during the Primetime Emmys telecast.

Gore, who is chairman of the venture, was joined on stage by Current's chief executive, his business partner Joel Hyatt.

Billed by Gore as a media innovation that encourages a "two-way conversation" with its audience, the 24-hour network airs a mix of professionally produced segments and viewer-produced videos from a few seconds to 15 minutes.

About 25 percent of Current's programming "pods" consist of homemade pieces dubbed "viewer-contributed content," or "VC Squared.

The rapid-paced format is targeted at Internet-savvy viewers 18 to 34 years-old, a generation Gore said "wants to be in control of its media." Programming subjects range from fashion and lifestyle trends to news and current events.

Current TV was converted from a defunct cable channel, Newsworld International, that a Gore-led investor group purchased in 2004 from Vivendi Universal for a reported $70 million.

With an estimated reach of 50 million homes in the United States and Britain, Current is carried to subscribers through satellite service DirecTV and various cable systems.

Gore, the Democratic nominee for president in 2000, last plied the Hollywood red carpet in February, when the big-screen version of his slide-show lecture and book about the threat of global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," won the Academy Award for best documentary feature.





[edit] Programs
Users (called VC2 Producers) contribute three-to-seven-minute "pods", which are usually documentary in nature. The content is filtered by registered users on Current's website through a voting process called "greenlighting". VC2 makes up a portion of the content aired on the channel. Users can also create Viewer Created Ad Messages, or V-CAMs and Current TV promos which are small promotions for either Current TV or the general topic of VC2. The channel has exclusive rights over viewer-submitted segments, but not copyright ownership.

Google provides hourly updates on popular web searches branded as Google Current. Current formerly had a business relationship with Yahoo! to supply video "channels" to The Yahoo! Current Network

Additional content is purchased by the channel through commercial methods.

SuperNews! airs on Current TV.


[edit] History
After the 2000 U.S. presidential election, Gore and Hyatt wanted to start a conventional cable news network. They were disenchanted with the existing networks, especially CNN. The plan evolved into making a viewer-generated channel aimed at young people.

On May 4, 2004, INdTV Holdings, a company co-founded by Gore and Joel Hyatt, purchased cable news channel NewsWorld International (NWI) from Vivendi Universal for the express purpose of launching their new network with the space on some digital cable lineups (and DirecTV) that NWI had. The new network would not have political leanings, Gore said, but would serve as an "independent voice" for a target audience of people between 18 and 34 "who want to learn about the world in a voice they recognize and a view they recognize as their own." Other reports said that Gore hoped that the channel would help change the tide of "consolidation and conglomeratization" of the media by leading the change to "democratization." The news network was said to be a combination between CNN, MTV, and blipverts.

In the summer of 2004, Gore and Hyatt announced their new network, christened INdTV, with a series of public recruitment events. The first of these events was held at the Bambuddha Lounge in San Francisco's Tenderloin, on August 25. On April 4, 2005, the former Vice President and business partner Hyatt announced that they had changed the name of the network from INdTV to Current. The new television network launched in the United States on August 1, 2005. Currently, the network is available in 30 million homes nationwide in the US, with plans underway for several international versions.

On September 20, 2006, Current TV started a short-lived partnership with Yahoo to supply topic-specific "channels" to the Yahoo Video website. Called the Yahoo! Current Network, the first four channels, "Current Buzz", "Current Traveler" "Current Action" (about action sports) and "Current Driver" quickly became the most popular videos on the Yahoo Video web site. There were Yahoo branded segments on Current TV, similar to the Google Current segments. Additional web channels were planned. However, on December 6, 2006, Yahoo and Current TV announced the end of their relationship. [2] Madeline Smithberg, co-creator of The Daily Show, was the Executive Producer for this project. She currently heads up Google Current.

On October 6, 2006, a deal was announced with British Sky Broadcasting to create a localized British version of Current TV to its satellite systems in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The British version went live on March 12, 2007.[3] The channel launched on Sky EPG number 229 and Virgin Media Channel 155.

In 2007 Current TV started VoD service on Virgin Media.

On September 16, 2007, Current TV won an Emmy award for Best Interactive Television Service at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards. This was the first year in which this Emmy was presented during the primetime broadcast. The award was presented by Masi Oka of Heroes fame and MySpace founder Tom Anderson (through their own computers), and Al Gore and Joel Hyatt accepted the award on their behalf.[1]