CRZ
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| #1 Posted on 19.7.05 1753.15 Reposted on: 19.7.12 1753.26 | (image removed) www.current.tv Affiliate eKit (whatever that is) (current.tv) (PDF)
Coming 1 August is Al Gore's "for, by and with the 18-34 audience" channel which replaces NWI (if you have THAT on your cable system already). The main hype is for "Google Current" which promises to tailor its newscasts based on what people are searching for NOW - we expect several :30 to 3:00 segments of upskirt shots, massive mammaries, bukkake and Anne Hathaway...or, more likely, they'll just lie about what terms people are searching on.
They also really want viewer-produced content - again, we expect they'll be sorry they asked, but given the amount of crap you might expect to come in, it MAY be possible for some diamond in the rough to make themselves known by producing quality, quality, quality...at least, until they realise what suckers they are by working for free. ;-)
Hey, wait, I'M 18-34! I better get cracking before I leave the demographic!
...well, maybe next month.
(edited by CRZ on 19.7.05 1753) | Promote this thread! |  | Ruby Trax
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| #2 Posted on 21.7.05 2034.07 Reposted on: 21.7.12 2034.56 | | So it's MTV's "UNfiltered," which was, first of all, eew, and secondly, actually cited by Al Gore as an inspiration for the entire network? Huh? That's a little gross and I'm already asleep. Although I did get a good laugh seeing the picture of the earnest emo boy on their staff named "Conor," ahahahahaha. | Teppan-Yaki
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| #3 Posted on 21.7.05 2156.33 Reposted on: 21.7.12 2156.44 | "Affiliate eKit (whatever that is)"
Nothing more than a .pdf press kit in sheep's semantics.
I see it as odd with "affiliate," since it's a cable network. It could be that the term in question means Cable/Multi-System Operators, but I could be wrong.
Swank graphics, though -- I will give them that. | CRZ
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| #4 Posted on 1.8.05 1129.27 Reposted on: 1.8.12 1129.31 | | THIS POST is both a request for anyone who has the channel to turn it on and tell me if it's any good or not...and a reminder to me to turn it on when I get home and report back. I have a feeling I'll be up for about 15 minutes, MAYBE half an hour, before I figure out that "18-34" doesn't REALLY include me, even if I'm technically still in that bracket. But shame on me for pre-judging!! | StaggerLee
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| #5 Posted on 1.8.05 1250.27 Reposted on: 1.8.12 1250.56 | | I went to the site to see what it looked like and clicked on the "see if its available" link, after entering my zip code, it asked for my name, address, email and telephone number. No thanks! | Mr. Boffo
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| #6 Posted on 1.8.05 1303.08 Reposted on: 1.8.12 1303.31 | Yeah, that system sucks. They wouldn't accept a birth year of 1900. I could be a 105 year old wanting to watch Current. They don't know for sure.
But I guess it's not on my cable system (Time Warner). | AWArulz
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| #7 Posted on 2.8.05 0805.54 Reposted on: 2.8.12 0806.14 | I watched a little Current TV last night (I think it was during the Diva search) and was bored.
They had a segment on about Deprak Chopa (the Indian self-body guy) (did I spell that totally wrong?). Something you could have seen on any features segment of CNN as a throwaway. Nothing innovative, certainly.
But I only gave it about 4 minutes. It's on Directv. | CRZ
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| #8 Posted on 2.8.05 1028.57 Reposted on: 2.8.12 1029.01 | I think they were running the same hour of programming over and over. I gave it about 15 minutes and Kim was about ready to strangle me. Let's just say at this point I can't see the Young Republicans getting THEIR productions on the channel any time soon. Sadly, I never saw the Google thing, which was the bit I was most interested in. I may try again later when my wife isn't around. ;-)
(Of course, Time Warner Cable hasn't yet updated their guide so it still appears on my system as "NEWWI" - so if you can't find Current, see if you have/had Newsworld International) | Lise
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| #9 Posted on 2.8.05 1817.54 Reposted on: 2.8.12 1819.52 | It was still listed as NWI on our guide as well. I made it through just over 2 segments before I felt like my brain was melting out of my head and that the channel's programming people had really missed the boat. The google segment I saw was on AIDS and it was incredibly stupid. It was a series of the top 10 most searched on AIDS related searches with a few factoids tossed in.
It felt like all fluff, no substance, and that I was being talked down at.
Apparently 18-34 year olds know nothing, have incredibly short attention spans, and need all sorts of information in quick flashy packaging bookended by attractive people in their age group talking about how this channel defines them even (of course it does, it employs them!).
I give it 3 months. | Zeruel
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| #10 Posted on 2.8.05 1851.04 Reposted on: 2.8.12 1851.10 | IMDB's comment on CTV's website.
http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2005-08-02/#tv4
Current Website Doesn't Flow Smoothly on Opening Day
On its first day of operations the website associated with Al Gore's new cable channel Current TV appeared to be a victim of its own success. The website, www.current.tv, where viewers can upload their own video productions for showing on the TV channel, experienced significant delays in displaying its home page CNET News reported today (Tuesday), citing performance tracker Keynote Systems. Tested in five major U.S. cities, the Current website reportedly took as long as 22 seconds to load the home page and in some instances couldn't do so at all. Keynote analyst Roopak Patel attributed the details to a crush of legitimate traffic rather than an attack by hackers.
| CRZ
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| #11 Posted on 2.8.05 2330.03 Reposted on: 2.8.12 2332.40 | Originally posted by Lise Apparently 18-34 year olds know nothing, have incredibly short attention spans, and need all sorts of information in quick flashy packaging bookended by attractive people in their age group talking about how this channel defines them even (of course it does, it employs them!).
You thought they were ATTRACTIVE?!
(hides Max Lugavere shrine while typing above sentence)
Earlier today while the site wasn't loading, I got bored enough to create THIS:
(image removed)
Although I think I like pixel drawing more when it's happening because I've selected "Video Graffiti" on my Atari 2600 "Surround" cartridge.
Wow, this post is ALMOST hip enough to get me a job at CURRENT.TV - RIGHT
(edited by CRZ on 2.8.05 2339) | Lise
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| #12 Posted on 3.8.05 0034.06 Reposted on: 3.8.12 0035.39 | Perhaps Al Gore was upset at learning he did not in fact invent the internet so he's decided to rehash internet data as TV.
Here's a newsflash Current, your target audience already HAS the internet. You need to give people something they don't already have to make a niche.
You will get much more out of reading a few news sites, and watching some funky documentaries at ifilm, than you will out of Current.
It was a cool idea to have "Viewer Created Content" (though calling it VCsquared is just stupid) that viewers can upload to the website, but they obviously weren't set up for the (predictable) deluge of uploads. It's going to take an army of interns to watch all the dreck that comes in and sort that down to a reasonable pile of stuff for the higher ups to view and decide what to air.
I'd love to hear the direction being given to the hosts "You're hip, with it, and informed. No, no, I don't think that came off as pretentious at all. Now pretend you're insecure about life decisions... make them identify with you. You're just like them... GO!" | Matt Tracker
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| #13 Posted on 3.8.05 1324.15 Reposted on: 3.8.12 1325.49 | DirectTV offers a channel called Link TV that provides short documentaries about world culture and arts. I thought that's what Current would be. I watched it yesterday three times and found the same clip about the OBEY artist each time, seemingly on a three-hour loop.
Cripes, even Logo (the gay channel) had more programming than this in their first week, and I didn't hear about it until after it launched. For all this to-do about Gore's network, I expect more product off the bat. | CRZ
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| #14 Posted on 4.8.05 2324.30 Reposted on: 4.8.12 2329.01 | I can't stop obsessing about this channel!
Here's a review:
For a channel that is supposed to be aimed squarely at 18- to 34-year-olds and reflect their views and concerns, Current is remarkably clueless and elitist.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/chi-0508040162aug04,1,1453221.story?coll=chi-ent_tv-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true (bugmenot required, broken into three pages)
| ICEMAN
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| #15 Posted on 8.8.05 1401.55 Reposted on: 8.8.12 1402.04 | | Without Current my friend wouldn't know that Japan has a high suicide rate. I've haven't seen it for myself but he describes it just as random stuff. | CRZ
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| #16 Posted on 8.8.05 1411.01 Reposted on: 8.8.12 1412.16 | Originally posted by ICEMAN Without Current my friend wouldn't know that Japan has a high suicide rate. I've haven't seen it for myself but he describes it just as random stuff.
Your friend should have been reading The W back in October 2004! (The W) | ICEMAN
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| #17 Posted on 8.8.05 1422.04 Reposted on: 8.8.12 1426.13 | Originally posted by CRZ
Originally posted by ICEMAN Without Current my friend wouldn't know that Japan has a high suicide rate. I've haven't seen it for myself but he describes it just as random stuff.
Your friend should have been reading The W back in October 2004! (The W)
That is just a strange,strange story. | | ALL ORIGINAL POSTS IN THIS THREAD ARE NOW AVAILABLE |
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