Do-It-Yourself Television     By Katie Atherton Katie Atherton Speaks with Current TV Host Conor Knighton about the Channel's unconventional, "reality" based television programming. First of all, what is Current TV? Current TV is a National Cable Network available to 20 million homes across the country. It is a network geared toward young adults with the focus of   providing content that is by, for, and with that audience. It is unique among all the television outlets out there in that the viewers are able to submit content to us. From launch, that has been the defining feature for us. As a whole, the network is all about news, lifestyle, and anything that would be of interest to someone in the range between 18 to 34 years old. What does Current TV offer to those people 18-34? Current TV offers 24 hours of programming/seven days a week, plus the unique opportunity to participate in that programming. A large part of Current's operation is our Online Studio which exists on our Web site and viewers of the actual network (the physical network on TV) can submit content through that Web site. As that content gets voted up by their peers (other people in the community) that content finds it way back onto T.V. It's very much a dialog back and forth we offer to the viewers and hope that they offer their programming to us. What exactly is BC2? Viewer created content. It's exactly what it sounds like, or content created by our viewers. It's all short form, pretty much everything you see on the network is short form ranging anywhere from 30 seconds to maybe even seven minutes, and rarely does it make it over that mark. The pieces we're having our viewers submit can be anything going on and what's important to them and a story that is told through their voice. One of our best submissions was from a guy during the heart of Hurricane Katrina. It was a very simple piece. He was just sort of wandering around his neighborhood on a boat with a camera with a couple of his buddies. It's a story that has been covered on all kinds of networks, but never in that way. We believe that when the viewers are able to contribute their stories, you'll either see a big story like that through a different angle, or you'll start seeing stories that you would've never found elsewhere. Many of the most interesting stories have been about an interesting subculture, or a random activity, or a new story you're just not going to find elsewhere. You would then upload that to the BC2 community which exists on the Web, and then people will vote on that content, and then that content makes it to air. Will viewer created content be influenced by amateur film producers, writers, and editors? Will it change the journalism film industry? Yes, it is absolutely changing, or if not already changed that landscape. Current was born out of the desire to be a part of that and to help get those stories to air. For the longest time TV has remained this one-way medium. The Web is a very good example of a medium that goes both ways. So in many ways, Current takes that model of the internet dialog and then applies that to television. If you don't like programming on Current, you change it. You're able to make it your own and it's something that right now we're able to do. You have ad sponsors, investors, and the former Democratic Vice President of the United States, Al Gore, all with a stake in the network and all waiting to see what is going to happen with it. How will the network make sure the content stays relevant to the 18-34 year old audience? How will you make sure that it really reflects their unique viewpoint? Obviously Al Gore is our most famous staff member. You know, most of the programming staff is exactly in that 18 to 34 year old demographic. Our audience is reflective of what's on air. The viewers are not only able to contribute, they are able to give feedback and this helps program the network. In the online studio you're deciding what you want to see and giving feedback, so to the extent that our audience participates with us (and they do), this helps guide our programming. If we ever find that something isn't relevant to the 18 to 34 year old audience, hopefully our audience is able to let us know instantly and we can, pretty quickly, change that. Who's doing the editing exactly? To some extent it is influenced by the viewers in that we draw our topics based on what our viewers are searching for online each day. We have a vanguard journalism department and they go out and cover stories that will be interesting to the 18 to 34 year old audience, but that are made by the producers here. That is programmed in-house and a good 30 percent of network is contributed by our viewers, and that is largely decided through how people vote on those segments in the online studio. We have the B2 top ten and each week whatever that number one spot is in the top ten, we take that to air. That is solely decided by the people who are voting on that on the Web. When blogs, discussion boards, Web sites, and other forms of publishing have now made the public savvier about how to manipulate the viewer experiences for profit, how do you avoid becoming vulnerable to the commercial aspect of the content? How do you draw the line between an advertisement and a pod? I think that while, yes, maybe people are savvier about how to manipulate that, I think that the viewing public is very savvy now too. They know when they're being pitched to, and they know when they are seeing something that is very authentic and original and so, I think that's what we strive foremostly to just be authentic. Our main goal is to find something that's interesting. If someone sends in something that is absolutely fascinating about a unique band or whatever, we consider that to be a fascinating story about that band. It is all filtered through with an eye for what is authentic and what's interesting. What will a VC2 producer have to do to get started? You can visit the Web site at www.current.tv and click on the online studio. There are several places you can visit. If you're just coming to this from scratch and you know you have a story to tell, but you're not as familiar with how to tell it, I would recommend checking out the storytelling guide which steps through everything from how to best approach a topic, to eventually how you want to edit, light, and shoot your pod. We have ten or so really interesting storytellers who've contributed to the storytelling guide that come from the world of outside Current, but offer their perspectives as to how someone best tells a story. People like Robert Redford or Ira Glass are all on there. They are people we thought would be interesting to our audience to learn those perspectives. You can learn some tricks of the trade there, and then the submission process is surprisingly easy. You go out, shoot it, you edit it, or perhaps in some cases you send in the raw footage. Some of the best submissions we've received have just been compelling two minutes straight of a broad visceral experience that someone has filmed, and it's minimal editing. Then some are extremely well produced, very professional-looking pieces that people have done on their own. It just runs the gamut. You can drive traffic on the site among your friends, since there's already a community green-lighting what they vote for and it gets ranked. As it gets voted up, we start paying attention to it and it makes it to air. There's a sliding pay scale. As you upload more content, you start getting paid more, so your fourth piece to air, for example, pays higher than your first piece. We've actually had cases where we've had contributors, who we've just started to develop a relationship with, people who just found us through submitting their pieces to the online studio and those people (some of them are regular contributors) we go to now for a commission, and some have come on staff from such consistent work. What is the pay range? For your first piece on air it is $500, and that goes up with experience. Your second is the same rate, and your third goes up to $730, and then it's $1000 for the fourth. With each piece there's on-air recognition. At the end of each piece there's a "15 seconds of fame" where you're invited to either give credit for the film, you can go on air yourself and explain what you were thinking of, or where people can go to get more information. There's a network sensibility for the creator in addition to the creation. What is the (according to Current TV) ideal role this generation will take in the programming they view? We absolutely think the viewers should have a role in the programming. That's what drives us, the idea that if they don't like what they see, it doesn't have to be a passive experience. They can actively contribute to the kind of television they like to watch. What are some of the challenges of bringing this new programming to the 18-34 age group? The generation I'm a part of is very demanding when it comes to getting their information. They are getting their information from a variety of sources and a lot of times they have a short attention span. Current was designed to accommodate that verses fight against it. That's where the short format came about. You get nuggets of information and enough of a rapid fire approach that at the end of an hour you learn quite a bit about a wide array of topics. Distribution is obviously another challenge that any network faces. This is part of what we've been working on since launch and dealing really well with since we first launched. Bringing more people into the fold and making that community even larger is part of that challenge. What is your personal advice for other 18-34 year olds? Get involved. [Current TV] is one of the easiest ways to get your voice heard on a mass scale. Television is still the dominant media. That's where people are going for their information and to be able to participate in that all of a sudden is a pretty unique opportunity. Take advantage of that. Hopefully that means submitting a piece, but if not, it could just as easily mean participating in the online community and deciding at least what you'd like to see. We've got other people that have been participating for a long time and just decided, "You know what? I'm going make one of these myself." Current TV is nationwide on direct T.V. channel 366. Time Warner in New York and L.A., Comcast in San Francisco and other pockets throughout the country.