Why Current Failed.. and What They Should Do Now

Currently in trouble....

OK

Before I start, full disclosure.

I am a shareholder in Current TV

Which makes me hope that new CEO Mark Rosenthal's strategy for success will work.

But I am not so sure.

The intitial idea behind Current was to tap into the massive 'democratization of video'.

This is not wrong.

More than 24 hours of content are uploaded to Youtube every minute.

That's just an astonishing number, and it shows that the desire to create content is there.

Current's mistake (IMHO), was to simply take those pieces and string them together and call it programming.

It isn't.

It isn't compelling and it isn't watchable.

What Current tapped into was a vast and almost limitless pool of potential.

Potential talent.

But that potential has to be trained and it has to be directed.

It has to be taught what to do.

We are the day after Gutenberg invented the printing press.

Just handing out pencils to the peasants in Germany and telling them to write, or publishing their first scribblings is not enough.

What Current should have done (my idea, dismissed out of hand by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt) was to take the best 200 filmmakers who had come to us and create a kind of Video Peace Corps. Sign them up for two years and then put them to work creating great programming.

That programming could be documentaries, or it could be reality shows or scripted dramas or whatever else they wanted to make.

That's the idea behind unleashing a creative force.

Let them make what they wanted to make - because it would also be what they wanted to watch.

Instead, Current just posted short video after short video after short video. Like watching Youtube hour after hour.

A snore... or the kind of programming only a schizophrenic could love.

Now CEO Mark Rosenthal hopes to 'double down' on the 'documentaries'.

OK.

Like I said, as a shareholder, I hope it works.

But I think that Mark is missing the USP for Current; missing a unique opportunity to really tap into the creative wellspring that the democratization of the medium has unleashed.

This is too bad.

But what can you do?

I have written to Mark, but so far, no responses.

They did, at least, send me my K2, so I know they're getting my emails.