All subscribers of DirecTV satellite service will get Current with their basic package. The channel will not be available to Comcast customers in the Washington area, but those in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Richmond and many other metropolitan markets will have access.
Based in San Francisco's South of Market/China Basin area, where countless, no-name dot-coms were born and died, Current's offices feature a glass-enclosed editing room where passers-by on the street can peek at the channel's latest videos being put together on two giant digital monitors on the walls.
The company is filled with promising but as yet mostly unknown media figures; most of Current's 120-plus staffers are under 40.
The roster of on-air reporters and producers includes Shauntay Hinton, a former Miss USA who studied broadcast journalism at Howard University and has been active in women's charities; Gotham Chopra, president of development for the largest comic book studio in India and co-creator of K lounge, described as a "Kama Sutra bar and lounge" in New York; Johnny Bell, a surfer who graduated from UCLA and has no TV experience but has worked on a banana farm in Central America; and Laura Ling, a former producer for the Channel One Network, the commercial educational channel broadcast in secondary schools.
Ling, a 28-year-old who also heads Current's "vanguard journalism" division, the group that will produce some segments, said the company is very "caj" (casual) and that among the best parts about it is that practically everyone who works there is in the same demographic as the target audience.
"The reporters are in the demo so they can speak to people in the demo. We are trying to remove some of the conventions that they might see in other outlets but might not respond to," Ling said.
Gore, Hyatt, 55, and programming chief David Neuman, 44, a former executive at NBC, Channel One, Disney and CNN, are the cool older-brother figures in the company. They try to create a fun, laid-back atmosphere in the offices and studios by doing things such as stocking a snack station with free Skittles and Fritos. Other D.C. power figures go by their D.C. titles in Silicon Valley -- Powell is addressed as "General Powell" and likewise Ridge is "Governor Ridge" -- but Gore likes to be called "Al."
Hyatt, Current's chief executive, said that although he and Gore regularly pop into meetings about content, they try to leave most of the editing and other decisions up to their younger colleagues.
"We're very much aware that we are a few years removed from our target demo," Hyatt said.
The venture returns Gore, who was a reporter for the Nashville Tennessean newspaper for more than four years before beginning his political career, to his journalistic roots. The company says it will be the "TV equivalent of the iPod shuffle," a reference to the popular portable music player made by Apple. (Not coincidentally, Gore sits on the company's board.)
Stories will run in a fast-paced short form. Instead of 30- to 60-minute shows, there will be vignettes from 15 seconds to five minutes. About 25 percent of the programming will be "news," 30 percent "information," 20 percent "social," 20 percent "escape" and 5 percent "wild card." Woven in between these snippets of video will be commentary from Current's hosts.
There's also a Google tie-in. Every half-hour Current will report news that is based on what people are searching for on Google at that very moment.
