Thursday, July 28, 2005
Opinion: Al Gore's TV revolution
Opinion: Al Gore's TV revolution: "Al Gore's TV revolution
A Times Editorial
Published July 27, 2005
It isn't often that a politician who has come within a Supreme Court decision of the White House can thoroughly reinvent himself. But with his new youth-oriented, populist TV news and information channel, dubbed Current TV, former Vice President Al Gore has made an ambitious start.
Scheduled to debut Monday, Current's format seems impossibly simple. Reasoning that its age-18-to-34 target audience already is living in a high-velocity, on-demand media universe, Gore's channel will offer bite-sized video packages no more than seven to 10 minutes long, allow viewers to submit pieces of their own and vote on their favorite amateur video online.
One of the channel's slogans makes the ambitious pledge to turn TV into a two-way conversation. And Gore, facing the public without a tie or any willingness to talk politics, has emerged as the unlikeliest of faces for a channel trying to make the video musings of unknown twentysomethings not only hip, but revolutionary.
Gore has morphed from a political punch line to the man aiming to end TV As We Know It. Not a bad perch for a guy seeking the kind of sweeping change as a media executive he never achieved as a politician.
[Last modified July 27, 2005, 01:03:14]"
A Times Editorial
Published July 27, 2005
It isn't often that a politician who has come within a Supreme Court decision of the White House can thoroughly reinvent himself. But with his new youth-oriented, populist TV news and information channel, dubbed Current TV, former Vice President Al Gore has made an ambitious start.
Scheduled to debut Monday, Current's format seems impossibly simple. Reasoning that its age-18-to-34 target audience already is living in a high-velocity, on-demand media universe, Gore's channel will offer bite-sized video packages no more than seven to 10 minutes long, allow viewers to submit pieces of their own and vote on their favorite amateur video online.
One of the channel's slogans makes the ambitious pledge to turn TV into a two-way conversation. And Gore, facing the public without a tie or any willingness to talk politics, has emerged as the unlikeliest of faces for a channel trying to make the video musings of unknown twentysomethings not only hip, but revolutionary.
Gore has morphed from a political punch line to the man aiming to end TV As We Know It. Not a bad perch for a guy seeking the kind of sweeping change as a media executive he never achieved as a politician.
[Last modified July 27, 2005, 01:03:14]"
