Sharing and Celebrating Points-Of-View

Gore's Current TV network puts young viewers in control

Gore's Current TV network puts young viewers in control: "It was impossible not to snicker a little at the notion of Al Gore creating a hip, youth-oriented cable network, and sure enough, Current TV is, at first glance, a punch line: MTV without the music.

But after only three weeks, Current is not a joke. It actually lives up to its billing as a slick, commercial cable network that gives its audience a voice in the programming.

The debt to MTV is clear. The VJ Jason Silva and other embarrassingly smooth presenters look like extras from 'The O.C.' and talk accordingly. (One described the network as 'a tapas bar of ideas.') And the stock is still so small that certain features -- suicide rates in Japan, the latest in German messenger bags -- are repeated over and over.

But the cable network, which is aimed at viewers 18 to 34, is not a Democratic Party pep rally or a liberal alternative to Fox News. Mostly, it is a loop of short subject features, from 15 seconds to five minutes."

posted by JOlmsted @ 4:03 PM