Current TV

Yesterday I finally got around to watching Current TV for the first time. Current TV is Al Gore’s new cable channel. I have Time Warner’s digital cable. Current TV replaced News World International. I liked to watch NWI occasionally to get a different perspective of the news and regret its loss. My first impression of Current TV was not good. I thought it was going to give me a headache. Then it began to grow on me.

I thought Al Gore had planned to put on a liberal news channel but that is not what finally evolved. Current TV claims to be non-political. It is aimed at a young audience. It does not follow the traditional 30 or 60 minutes program length. It has mini-documentary segments called “pods” that are no longer than seven minutes unless they are especially good. I wonder if they are called “pods” because Al Gore sits on the Apple board of directors. Current TV is encouraging the viewers to submit their videos for use on the channel. While the pods are running a progress bar is shown in the lower left corner of the screen. The progress bar is similar to what you see on your computer when software is being installed.

Several times they had segments on the top Google searches underway on the internet on specific topics. I saw a couple of pods in the “Mentor” series where good advice was given on ethics. The documentaries expose the viewer to many different cultures. It is going to be interesting to see how this channel evolves and if it manages to attract an audience.