As Al Gore’s Current Media gets ready for its IPO, the cable channel is drawing more on its Website audience for TV content. Today, it is launching Current News, a three-minute wrap-up culled from audience submissions on the Web that will play every hour on Current TV. As such, the site now has a new look, with the audience contributions front and center. Each one can be voted up the page, and at the very top are the most popular, which get packaged together every hour on TV in the new Current News segment. The video can also be seen on the Website.
From the very beginning, Current has solicited submissions from its Web audience. About a third of the segments on the news channel are shot and produced by freelancers who submit via the Website. If their video is played on TV, Current pays them at least $1,000. But, says Current’s Web strategist Robin Sloan, “There is a pretty limited audience of people who can create good stuff. We wanted to give more people a chance to contribute.” So last October, the company relaunched its Website as Current.com (from Current.tv), and let the audience items that are easier to create than a fully-produced TV-quality video. They were allowed to submit links, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, and Webcam comments.
Now, with Current News and the redesign of the site, the audience contributions that are voted to the top of the page are put together into a video by editors at Current, who throw in some graphics and a quirky computerized female voice that narrates. The feedback loop between the Website and the TV channel will now be measured in hours, not days. “This is the perpetual beta taken to TV,” says Sloan. Here is an example of what the mashup video looks like:
The robot voice really needs to go.
Current Media makes nearly all of its money from the cable channel. Last year, it lost $9.7 million, on revenues of $63.8 million. But revenues grew 68 percent, and its Websiet is finally starting to show some signs of life. Sloan says monthly uniques are at 1.5 million. ComScore measured about 500,000 U.S. visitors in February, which spiked up from 150,000 before that (see chart). Making it easier to get on TV and revolving the entire site around that should help the Web traffic even more.
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It never ceases to surprise how both the Digg and YouTube concept send ripples throughout the business world and society.
You would have thought just 10 years ago, that the public could eventually have so much influence - for decades it had all been under the whim of editors
I think this is a really cutting-edge idea and service - blending print/video, web/TV. I like the voice technology! Current is thinking ahead.
Dancejam wants its logo back.
Glad to see Al Gore doing well.
Have you all seen the website http://www.vocalo.org? It is trying to do a similar thing with radio instead of TV? It has some differences, but the goals are similar.
Just for the record folks:
Miss Universe - Current TV was out in May 2004, YouTube didn’t come around until a full year later. Current created the ripples!
Ryan Merket - see above … Current wants its logo back from Dancejam more like!
http://locksmithhome.com/default.aspx
You can have the best vehicle in the world, but if the fuel is this bad, it won’t be successful.
Maybe Gore doesn’t know his audience? The truly faithful should know that the Goreacle commands them to stop using their CO2-emitting TV set and get back to subsistence farming… or better yet, stop exhaling!
I think this is great: online uploading of content with TV-based (non-interactive/ relaxing) consumption.
It should be pretty cheap to get a TV channel on the satellite cable networks and Dish should think about making it easier. They should just add revenue sharing where the percentage starts at 90% in their favor and ges down with volume. For example, the livestreaming players could use this for their popular broadcasters.
@5, Very cool. Never heard of them before
@8, shut up, dude flies around in leer jets. Take your exaggerations back to drudge
This is really cool… anyone know how it works? It would be great to know how they can produce video clips and audio overlay on the fly.
Awful content.
Current exploits young professional producers by paying next to nothing for content…they realized “viewer generated content” what they call VC2 didn’t work because very few people can actually produce good little TV segments. So they hire young people eager to get in the business for peanuts and retain all the rights to their pieces, making money by selling it on multiple platforms. So maybe with Current News creating more content, they can pay their producers a living wage.
Just the two cents of a disgruntled professional.
Charles,
While I agree with the premise of your argument, I’ve also seen a similar model used over at Threadless.com. At first they only offered a tiny pittance for designers who’s art they printed on t-shirts. Now they offer $2000 per design plus bonuses for reprinting, etc. Over the years it has also produced several designers who used Threadless as a place to garner attention and build their resume.
Just like Threadless, I don’t see Current hanging onto really great producers for long. However, I can imagine a lot of underprivileged, underfunded, producer savants that don’t have the means of going to a J-School, getting their break at Current in the coming years.