BSkyB to launch UK version of Gore's Current TV
October 6, 2006
LONDON (Reuters) - Satellite broadcaster BSkyB joined forces with Al Gore on Friday to unveil a British version of his Current TV, a channel showing user-generated programmes.
BSkyB Chief Executive James Murdoch and the former U.S. vice president told Reuters in a joint interview they hoped to use the channel to democratise the broadcast medium by allowing viewers to produce and broadcast their own short films.
"What we're seeing here is just quality journalism finding new ways of coming to the fore and much more plurality in terms of the voices being heard," said Murdoch, the younger son of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns 39 percent of BSkyB.
"I think you will always have an audience for something professionally produced ... but what this does is really shows us that nobody has a sort of god-given monopoly on what professional story-telling is."
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
The interview took place on Thursday and was embargoed for release on Friday.
The phenomenon of video clips created at home and distributed over the Internet has exploded over the past year with YouTube streaming more than 100 million a day, and Google and others rapidly expanding their own similar services.
Despite the rampant popularity of video on the Internet, Gore said he believes TV will remain the medium of choice for now because it has the unique ability to reach a mass audience.
He said he created Current TV to combine the enthusiasm and unique outlook people bring to the Internet with television's ability to reach millions of viewers at the same time.
"There will always be content made by people like Steven Spielberg that will be a cut above," he said. "But it's worth noting that Steven Spielberg's first movie was three minutes long and there are lots of other up-and-coming creators that have the ambition to develop (that) kind of talent."
Viacom Inc.'s MTV also recently launched a TV channel in Britain called Flux, where viewers create some of the programming and have a say in what is broadcast.
INTERNET-SAVVY VIEWERS
Gore, who narrowly lost the 2000 U.S. presidential election to George W. Bush, launched the channel with business partner and entrepreneur Joel Hyatt in August 2005 with fast-paced non-fiction programmes, or "pods", aimed at 18-to-34-year-old Internet-savvy viewers.
The viewer-produced videos last from a few seconds to 15 minutes and cover technology, the environment, fashion or politics. Viewers can send their videos to the www.current.tv Web site for selection for the channel.
Viewer-created programming makes up about 30 percent of the schedule for Current TV in the United States while the remainder is current affairs content produced by the channel.
Murdoch said he learnt about the power of user-generated videos after his company's Sky News channel asked viewers for their footage of the Asian tsunami in 2004 and the attacks on the London transport system in 2005.
"It was one of the things that actually twigged for me to say ... there is a whole community of people out there who are very eager to share what they're seeing," he said.
Current TV reaches nearly 30 million homes in the United States and will reach another 8.2 million Sky households when it launches in the next few months.
Hyatt told Reuters the channel would be aimed at a UK audience using content from UK viewers but that it would also use videos from contributors around the world.
Source: Reuters
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/06102006/325/bskyb-launch-uk-version-gore-s-current-tv.html