Gore-owned Current TV to raise USD 100 million

By Margarita Snegireva. Youth-focused television network Current Media Inc, which was found by former U.S. president Al Gore, plans to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering on the Nasdaq stock market.

Photo: Gore-owned Current TV to raise USD 100 million

The company, of which Gore is executive chairman, owns Current TV, an interactive cable television network that features videos submitted by viewers as well as professionally produced content.

Aimed at viewers aged 18 to 34, Current TV was launched in August 2005 to 19 million U.S. households. It is now available in 51 million households in the United States , Britain and Ireland .

Current TV is an Emmy award winning independent media company led by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, and businessman Joel Hyatt. The cable television network went on the air at midnight EDT (4:00 UTC) on the morning of August 1, 2005. A second network, operated in the United Kingdom and Ireland started its operation March 12, 200 for Sky and Virgin Media subscribers.

Current features "pods", or short programs, of which a portion are created by viewers and users.

An experimental Canadian show called ZeD was the first programmed broadcast of user-generated video content. Other inspiration for Current TV came from a 1990s series on MTV called UNfiltered, where the network sent cameras to viewers in order to report on stories they thought were important. Current TV is the first 24-hour network based around viewer-created content, which it dubs VC².