Current’s Mark Goldman

April 2007

By Anna Carugati

Founded by former Vice President Al Gore and Joel Hyatt,
Current is the first TV network created by, for and with young adults. In fact,
since it launched, on August 1, 2005, Current has been enlisting its viewers to
become creative partners, making it the first television network in history
whose programming is supplied in part by the very audience that watches it.
Current offers short-form, nonfiction “pods,” a third of which are created by
viewers. These pods are short videos that tell a story, profile a character or
share an idea. Current’s COO, Mark Goldman, talks about the success of the
network and about plans for expansion.

WS: What can viewers
find on Current that they can’t find on other networks?

GOLDMAN: What
Current is, in a nutshell, is everything that is going on in the world of young
adults and, as much as possible, produced in their own voice from their own
perspective. So we cover every single topic that young adults would face in
their lives. We let them have the opportunity to share those experiences
through television and we have created this open-source TV platform for them.

WS: When Current
first launched, what was the response to viewer-generated pods?

GOLDMAN: It was much
better received than we expected. Our underlying philosophy is that any piece
that is absolutely compelling makes it to television, whether a viewer creates
it or we create it. And when we first launched, [we] felt that 5, maybe, if we
were lucky, 10 percent of our content would be viewer-created content. We
launched the network with 20 percent, and it’s grown to about a third of our
schedule, and we have every expectation of growing that further.

WS: How do viewers
weigh in on what gets on the website and what gets on the air?

GOLDMAN: We screen
every single submission and we reject anything that has hate messages in it,
pornography, or obvious copyright violations. Short of that, we really put
everything up on the website for our community to then watch, vote on and
comment on. And it has become a pretty robust production community. They are
commenting on each other’s pieces, and giving each other suggestions. We don’t
filter in advance for whether we think the piece is worth seeing on TV or not;
we let our community have that say. That’s part of the process of democratizing
the media and letting voices come to the surface.

WS: How did the
expansion in the U.K. come about?

GOLDMAN: James
Murdoch [the chief executive of BSkyB] saw what we were doing and sought out a
relationship with us. He’s been a fantastic ally and advocate of ours. At
Virgin, Steve Burch and Richard Branson have equally been interested and
supportive and we’re very fortunate. It’s rare these days to be able to launch
in a market with the placement and prominence that we have been able to get.
And the response has been quite positive. We already have a robust
viewer-contributor community there as well.

WS: Will this act as
a springboard into other markets?

GOLDMAN: It’s
certainly our desire. When Al and Joel created this business, the goal was to create
a global conversation and really get people to share experiences and talk
through television.

WS: How have
advertisers responded?

GOLDMAN: We’ve been
extremely successful and fortunate on the advertising front. Our roster of
advertisers is an absolute blue-chip list: Sony, L’Oréal, Toyota, Johnson &
Johnson, Pepsi, I could go on and on. We’ve offered them the opportunity to tie
into a pod category that most resonates with the audience that they are trying
to reach—which is a very unique proposition—rather than throwing
their ad into a series of ads. We also build them into the graphics of that pod
franchise. All of that is probably secondary to some of the innovation we have
brought. The viewer-created ads have been phenomenally successful. We’ve done
them now for all the advertisers I’ve mentioned and a few more. We just
launched one with Electronic Arts. They are actually driving people from their
Sims game to come to make an ad at Current for them.

We also offer advertisers long-form ad messages. Our unique
scheduling format [allows us] to give advertisers up to three minutes to run
essentially little movies. And some of our advertisers have gotten extremely
creative.

WS: What are your
priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

GOLDMAN: I could
characterize them in three different areas: building awareness and a following
of Current wherever the channel is already carried; expanding into new
platforms, allowing people new ways of accessing this incredible diary of
content that we have; and then creating a global platform to get all sorts of
different voices and perspectives involved. So we’ve got a lot on our plate and
a lot of opportunities.