Current Media, the peer-to-peer news and information company famously co-founded by former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, appears to be facing stormy weather lately.
After two of its reporters were detained by North Korea in a relatively high-profile incident last month, the startup got criticized (whether justified or not) for remaining deafeningly silent over the matter even when it became clear the arrested journalists were not going to get off easily. Only last Friday we reported that the state of the economy forced Current Media – often referred to as Current TV – to pull its $100 million IPO.
Today, word got out that the company has lost its Chief Technology Officer Steven Blumenfeld (former VP of Technology at AOL) to a relatively unknown startup called Sparkplay Media, a venture-backed company readying the launch of a free, three-dimensional MMOG called Earth Eternal. Keep an eye on that one.
We should note that Blumenfeld apparently left Current Media a while ago and joined the ranks of freelance consultants for a couple of months before joining Sparkplay and at Current was swiftly replaced by ex-Yahoo exec Ofer Shaked. It’s even possible Blumenfeld was part of the big lay-off round Current did last November, when the company slashed 60 jobs and dropped its staff to about 400 employees, although his LinkedIn profile suggests he left prior to that.
Founded in 2005, the startup raised relatively little to get started ($15 million) but ultimately launched as a cable TV network/online media outlet after acquiring Newsworld International for reportedly close to $80 million. When it filed for the – now pulled – IPO in the beginning of last year, it quickly became clear that the company was burning money fast and revenues were below par. Since then, the company has been fairly silent about its financial health, and the canceled IPO has likely dealt it another blow after the job cuts late last year.
Judging by its website traffic, at least according to Compete and QuantCast, its audience seems to be shrinking fast. Both peg the visitor rates to have dropped significantly since peaking in November last year, estimating it received less than half the visitors on its website than it did 6 months ago.
dude… they are seriously f*cked.
“Judging by its website traffic, at least according to Compete and QuantCast, its audience seems to be shrinking fast. Both peg the visitor rates to have dropped significantly since peaking in November last year, estimating it received less than half the visitors on its website than it did 6 months ago.”
Higher viewership during the election cycle and a return to normal viewership perhaps?
i remember hearing the head of marketing and the entire marketing group left at that time. that certainly could account for the drop in Nov…. or it could have been as you say “election cycle”
Robin,
His name is Steven Blumenfeld. And he kicks ass.
Thanks, I don’t know where I got Rosenblum from. Probably means it’s time for me to hit the sack. Thx again.
he must be running out door when there was no ipo…that should be a sign to everyone else there…get out asap
Steven left Current in August before the big layoff
“Global warming” polls at <0.1%. Why? Because it’s a non-issue.
“Current.TV” is a flop. Why? Because its ‘issues’ are non-issues.
Al Gore: WAKE UP.
Randy, while your quoting polls, those must be the 60% of USA citizens which don’t believe in Evolution either …
@kpr, you’re blinded by ideology.
I really enjoy Current.TV so I hope that this does not signal any upcoming difficulties. Their programming is a refreshing change.
steven is one seriously smart guy. it is not good that Current lost one of the few people there that really understands tv and the internet. Sure hope Current Figures it out because it really is fun to watch
Didn’t understand it enough to make it work though.
it’s too bad Al Gore will no long er have an outlet to spew his Marxist propaganda.
no, the current administration is working overtime on that for him
You two sound like athiests. Dirty, dirty athiests.
Steven is a rock star and we’re really happy to get him on board at Sparkplay. Current’s loss is our gain!
sparkplay, i ca n already tell by the name it’s noplay.
I like Current TV, but the UK schedule involves a lot of repetition of ‘pods’ these days. I’m not convinced they’re doing the right things to get the message out there for people to submit content.
Anything Al Gore does is pure propoganda. Since he lost the presidential election hes been trying to create a “legacy” for himself. Sorry, Al this Global Warming farce isnt working.
I’ve never particularly liked Current.TV and would have preferred if they had not taken Newsworld International off the air to make room for it.
Newsworld International was a great niche cable network that showed news programs from all over the world such as ITV News in the UK, CBC News, Japan News, etc.
It was a neat little channel and no one has replaced it since Current took it off the air.
The company is just a bit ahead of its time! CurrentTV’s issue is how it reaches its audience, its only on one channel on Cable TV and that channel isn’t available to basic subscribers! CurrentTV also should have some sort of interactive shows where viewers can interact with each other and watch online or call in via Skype. The future of News & Print Media will be based on a distributed platform where content consumers now have the opportunity to become content producers & leveled playing fields!
the company is not ahead of it’s time; i interviewed there for a job like 3 years ago for dev position; while they were good; they had no say. the internet was considered second/third at best. it was all about the tv… with tons of communication type major running around playing politics and pretending they’re cool.
most of the people hang outside smoking.
Current really made a mistake when they redesigned their homepage. You now have to dig for stories when before it was lined up more like Digg is which was nice since you got the top stories first. Now it’s all in categories which should be secondary for news.
Its all changing. One of the best new sites is EyeEyeTv.com
Just imagine that YOU are the programming manager for a Tv station. You can choose 100 of your favorite channels & watch whatever you want (including many primetime shows and movies) anytime you want.
Ironically enough, that concept was proposed twice and it was never given any serious thought.
And Steven left before the layoffs. Other notables were Mark Goldman (COO), Smith Forte (SVP Online) and Jason Miel (SVP Programming)…all around the same time.
One of the most overhyped ideas of the 2000’s. You get the worst of UGC (poor production value), and the worst of TV (no choosing what show to watch.)
If Current was smart it would devote 100% of its attention to SuperNews, the most interesting part of the website by leaps and bounds.
If SuperNews rolled out new content say 3 times a week and promoted the hell out of it, it would become a very popular destination. The SuperNews Twitter parody got over 1 million views on Youtube in about a week. How many other Current videos accomplished that?
SuperNews is clever enough and has enough potential for growth to stand on its own as an extremely popular website worth $15 million in funding. I doubt Current sees it this way, but the 1 million plus views in 1 week on Youtube for the Twitter video should be a wake-up call.
It makes me sad to see Current struggling. I’ve always been a fan of what they were trying to accomplish. I think they probably got too much money and big name support to live up to their hyper-inflated expectations. If they had been allowed to grow more organically and stick to their mission they could have been YouTube or better.
Its always sad to see promising companies lose talented people. Current’s UGC model has been a breath of fresh air amid the drivel that fills most of the cable dial.
But this story may have a silver lining. A big part of the problem, imho, is that Current ever planned to go public. I’m not saying they should be a nonprofit. I’m just not convinced that the news business and Wall St. should ever mix. The same perverse incentives that gave us the sub-prime mess inevitably drive good people to make bad decisions that drive good companies into the ground, as the ghosts of so many print dailies can attest.
Here’s a vote for building stable (and privately-held) media companies that provide real value, serve the public trust, and grow sustainably over the long term.
Good luck, Current!
Wow. Fascinating turn here. I hadn’t thought of it like that. You’ve got me convinced. Aren’t newspapers being closed now b/c they can’t generate a % of profit acceptable to public investors?
Borat: Yes and no. Many newspapers have been wildly profitable, earning returns in the 20-30% range. Unfortunately that’s not profitable enough for the short-sighted Wall St. conglomerates who snapped them up since media ownership regs were loosened in ‘96.
But in the last few years, they’ve also been losing print readership to online, where ad spending is much lower per impression. Meanwhile, they’ve lost tons of online $$ from their cash cow — classifieds — to Craigslist et al. And, they’ve refused to embrace online audiences and get creative about new revenue streams.
So as we lose important services like investigative reporting at the dying dailies, online-only upstarts like http://huffingtonpost.com and http://minnpost.org are starting to fill the void.