Media: All about ... Current TV

He lost the 2000 presidential election to George W Bush - but if the
zeitgeist is a wave and that wave has a leading edge, there's no-one
more prominently up there surfing it these days.

Gore is a director of Apple Inc, an advisor to the board of Google and
was also heavily involved in An Inconvenient Truth, the award-winning
feature film documentary on climate change released last year.

He is also, perhaps most importantly, the co-founder and president of
Current TV, the most zeitgeisty television channel on the planet. And
we're going to be hearing rather a lot about Current TV as it happens,
because it has just launched in the UK on the Sky and Virgin Media
platforms.

1Gore and his business partner Joel Hyatt bought the US cable news
channel Newsworld International in 2004 and began a radical reinvention
process. Gore's treatment at the hands of conventional news media during
the 2000 election campaign convinced him there was a need for an
independent factual programming platform for open-minded people between
the ages of 18 and 34. NWI was relaunched as Current TV in August 2005,
and is now available in 39 million homes, on a subscription basis.

2Seventy per cent of Current TV's schedule is commissioned and produced
in the time-honoured fashion - though it aims to be quirky in format and
left-field in its viewpoints. In the remaining 30 per cent of its
output, Current is essentially television's foremost exponent of the
viewer-created content phenomenon that, in its internet manifestation,
is one of the principal drivers of Web 2.0. But it has an online aspect,
too.

The www.current.tv site invites viewers to submit short-form non-fiction
video films. These are then showcased online, and visitors to the site
can vote for the films they want to see on air. Current TV editors can
then cherry-pick the best material. A training programme is also offered
in an effort to raise amateur production standards.

3There are normal spot advertising and sponsorship opportunities on
Current, but it also offers innovative ways for advertisers to become
involved where the broadcast channel is concerned. Advertisers and
agencies can use the website to issue "briefs" for viewer-created ads -
and once submitted, a viewer-created spot, if it meets the brief, will
be voted on using the same mechanism used to judge editorial
submissions. Or advertisers can offer to help develop individual
submissions.

Furthermore, advertisers are free to submit advertiser-funded
programming executions for consideration in editorial slots. These can
run if they meet the regulatory conditions, are in keeping with the
do-it-yourself style of much of the rest of the channel's content and
pass quality control votes. On top of all of this, Current occasionally
will give over a six-minute slot in which advertisers can run
experimental formats - usually quirky long-form or rough-cut
commercials.

4In the US, the channel's audience has been too low to trouble the
Nielsen audience measurement system, so it is zero-rated. It essentially
trades on a metric "factored up" from traffic figures on the website
plus "anecdotal evidence" that content is making an impact on its target
audience.

But Current is basically asking advertisers to take a punt when they buy
into the channel - and its rates continue to reflect that. Rivals are
not slow to exploit the fact that it offers no hard and fast trading
currency. And it remains on shaky ground when it evokes anecdotal
evidence. As one US media analyst, John Higgins, put it last year: "Do
you ever hear people say: 'Did you see that video on Current?' No. They
say: 'Did you see that video on YouTube?'"

5But advertisers are undaunted in the US - and many use Current to
experiment with new ideas, put out feelers and stimulate feedback. It is
thought that Current made a profit of $3 million on revenues of
$47 million in 2006, with advertising contributing $10
million. Its ad revenue forecast for 2007 is $19 million.
Advertisers who've used Current to develop ideas include Converse, Sony
Electronics, MasterCard, Toyota and L'Oreal.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR ...

ADVERTISERS

- One thing is sure: if Current wants to be a long-term success, it will
have to generate enough of an audience to appear on the Barb figures.
And it would be advised to commission its own proprietary research,
too.

- But this is going to prove an intriguing option for advertisers in the
UK. It is essentially a hybrid - taking the formats and do-it-yourself
attitudes of the YouTube generation, yet applying some of the editorial
quality control virtues and production standards more commonly found in
mainstream television.

- As Jean-Paul Edwards, the head of OMD Media Futures, puts it: "Current
won't attract a huge audience overnight, but it will draw a
well-targeted, opinion-forming demographic. That will be attractive for
some brands pushing the corporate responsibility angle. And the many
ways in which you can get involved on the advertising side will be
interesting, too. It adds a whole new dimension."

- Damien Blackden, the director of strategic marketing technologies at
Universal McCann, agrees: "The thing about YouTube is there's just so
much rubbish on there. Current's short-form content is good. It's the
best sort of snack media. There's a realisation now that we need filters
of some sort - so Current represents the democratisation of media
without giving in to anarchy."

RIVAL MEDIA OWNERS

- The smarter players are going to take more than a passing interest in
this new kid in the playground, and the odds are we'll see a bit of
me-too activity kicking in. Expect a rash of viewer-generated content
slots in post peak.