Al Gore launches TV channel for young viewers; mentions Apple Macs
Tuesday, April 05, 2005 - 07:36 AM EDT"Al Gore has a plan for luring the Internet generation back to television: make it more participatory by having viewers contribute their own video," Beth Fouhy reports for The Associated Press. "The former vice president and longtime Internet champion joined investors Monday to announce the creation of "Current," a cable TV channel that will target younger viewers with a blend of news, culture and viewer-produced video. Gore will serve as chairman of the board of the new venture, which will be based in San Francisco."
"He and Joel Hyatt, the founder of Hyatt Legal Services who will serve as Current's chief executive, assembled an investment team that paid $70 million last year to acquire the Newsworld International channel from Vivendi International," Fouhy reports. "The channel, to launch Aug. 1, will remain privately financed and initially will be available in 19 million cable-subscriber homes. Central to their strategy is inviting Current's viewers to supply their own video content and helping them produce it using editing tools that Current will make available on its Web site. That video eventually will comprise more than half the programming seen on the channel."
"Gore said his interest in the venture stemmed from a frustration that television, because of the high cost of cameras, studios and production, had long been a 'one-way' medium dominated by large media companies. Innovations in digital video have put those tools in the hands of young people, he said. 'The $100,000 television camera has become a $3,000 high-definition camera, and the $250,000 editing console has become a $1,000 Apple computer program,' Gore said. 'The five-person crew can be one young woman in her twenties with something the size of a handbag,'" Fouhy reports.
"Gore, who narrowly lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, has publicly complained about the number of conservative voices dominating the airwaves," Fouhy reports. "Yet he insisted that Current will have no political agenda. 'We have no intention of being a Democratic channel, a liberal channel or the TV version of Air America,' Gore said, referring to the fledgling liberal radio network. 'It is not in any way an ideological, much less partisan point of view in any respect. It will have the point of view of the young generation.'"
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Good for Apple Board member Gore to work in the Apple reference. It's a nice little cross-promotion and a free mention for Apple in thousands of outlets that will syndicate this story in coming days.
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And now, start the political bashing!