- published: 28 Feb 2015
- views: 584528
Current TV, or Current, is a progressivemedia company led by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt. Comcast owns a ten percent stake of Current's parent company, Current Media LLC.
The Current cable television network went on the air in the US at midnight EDT (4:00 UTC) on the morning of August 1, 2005. Current TV was launched in South Africa for satellite subscribers on the TopTV platform on 1 May 2010.
After the 2000 U.S. presidential election, Gore and Hyatt wanted to start a conventional cable news network. They were disenchanted with the existing networks.[citation needed] The plan evolved into making a viewer-generated channel aimed at an audience demographic age 18–34.
On May 4, 2004, INdTV Holdings, a company co-founded by Gore and Joel Hyatt, purchased cable news channel NewsWorld International (NWI) from Vivendi Universal for the express purpose of launching their new network with the space on some digital cable lineups (and DirecTV) that NWI had. The new network would not have political leanings, Gore said, but would serve as an "independent voice" for a target audience of people between 18 and 34 "who want to learn about the world in a voice they recognize and a view they recognize as their own."