Current TV adds mobile video to line-up
July 12, 2006
By Jonathan Webdale
Current TV, the cable network targeting US youth and set up by former vice president Al Gore, has introduced its latest user-generated content initiative, making viewers' mobile videos a regular feature of its schedule.
Current Mobile, sponsored by Sony Ericsson to promote its latest video camera phones, adds to the viewer-created content that already makes up 30% of Current TV's output.
The network will pay US$100 to anyone who uploads mobile video on to the Current website that the broadcaster's programming department deems good enough to air. The initiative will be launched with a public vote through August in which those who put forward submissions can win $500.
Current has dubbed its budding army of mobile video contributors "phonojournlists" and believes that expanding the user-generated content it features beyond that shot on video cameras will open it up to a much wider audience.
"For an increasing number of people the cell phone is not only the preferred communication medium but the preferred way to consume video content and to shoot it as well," said Current TV president of programming David Neuman. "We look to transform those who use mobile devices for fun into paid 'phonojournalists.'"
Current TV launched almost a year ago and claims to be the first national network created by, for and with an 18- to 34-year-old audience. The channel is presently available in 28 million US homes via Comcast, Time Warner Cable and DirecTV.
Source: C21 Media
http://www.c21media.net/resources/detail.asp?area=89&article=31229