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Al Gore heads to Emmy red carpet for Current TV
2007-09-15
Six months after achieving Oscar glory for his climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," former Vice President Al Gore is headed back to the red carpet for the Emmys, U.S. television's highest honors. Gore is expected to receive an "interactive television services" Emmy, a noncompetitive award, on Sunday for his fledgling cable network and online video venture Current TV, which he launched in August 2005. Current is one of five finalists for the award, decided by an interactive-media "peer jury" of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and presented for the first time during the live telecast of the Primetime Emmy Awards. Gore, chairman of the venture, plans to attend the Emmys with chief executive and business partner Joel Hyatt, a spokeswoman said. Billed by Gore as a revolutionary TV outlet that encourages a "two-way conversation" with its audience, the 24-hour network airs a mixture of professionally produced segments with viewer-produced videos running from a few seconds to 15 minutes. Organizers say about 25 percent of Current's programming "pods" -- a term borrowed from Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod portable digital music player -- consist of homemade pieces dubbed viewers contributed content, or "VC Squared." The rapid-paced format is targeted at Internet-savvy viewers 18 to 34 years old, a generation Gore said "wants to be in control of its media." Programming subjects range from fashion and lifestyle trends to news and current events. Current TV was converted from a defunct cable channel, Newsworld International, that a Gore-led investor group purchased in 2004 from Vivendi Universal for a reported $70 million. With an estimated reach of 50 million homes in the United States and Britain, Current is carried to subscribers through satellite service DirecTV and various cable systems. Gore, the Democratic nominee for president in 2000, last plied the Hollywood red carpet in February, when the big-screen version of his slide-show lecture and book about the threat of global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," won the Academy Award for best documentary feature.
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