Jon E. Dougherty, NewsMax.com
Thursday, May. 06, 2004

No doubt, viewers of Al Gore's new cable television news channel will, to paraphrase cable's No. 1 news guy Bill O'Reilly, have to decide for themselves.

Gore, whose business partner is Joel Hyatt, and an investment group he heads up -- IndTV, Inc., announced earlier this week after a year of silence it had purchased cable channel Newsworld International, or NWI, from Vivendi Universal for $70 million, according to published reports.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation currently provides programming for NWI and will continue to do so, at least for the time being. Gore and Co. are currently vetting potential programs, however, which has led to some speculation among Americans about the kind of shows he'll broadcast.

Perhaps sensing his longtime association with the Democratic Party might taint viewership before the his network even launches its first new program, Gore immediately claimed political neutrality:

"Mr. Gore was . . . ready to set the record straight: His new TV project was not to be confused with somebody’s idea of a lefty Fox News, despite his having called Mr. Murdoch’s network part and parcel of the Republican party," the New York Observer reported.

The former veep told the paper some people were "understandably" confused he might dedicate programming to left-of-center subject matter.

"Number one, we made a decision not to talk to anybody, and that left a vacuum, and we understood that that was a risk we were running, but we just stuck to our guns and didn’t talk to anybody," said Gore.

Secondly, the group organizing Air America -- "Al Franken’s new liberal talk radio network -- "was out there in the same time frame and they are overtly partisan. And I had made comments expressing concerns about the nature of the news media and so forth, and I’ve been in politics for 25 years, so it’s not hard to see how people could jump to the wrong conclusion. But they did," Gore added.

Gore went on to say the channel will be neither political nor partisan. But time will tell: Other investors include former Warner Bros. Home Video President Warren Lieberfarb and RealNetworks Inc. Chairman Rob Glaser. Glaser is also invested in Air America.

Going After Young Viewers

But Gore has said repeatedly his goal is to incorporate programming that captures the attention of younger viewers, particularly those in the 18-34 age group.

"We are going to be a fresh, independent voice that is different from anything on television today," he said.

"We are really being overwhelmed with contacts from creative, young people in the industry who have some unbelievably fantastic ideas that they are presenting to us. It’s really fun. And they like the fact that we’re independent and that they can get a hearing for stuff that they really don’t think they’ve been able to present well to the conglomerate types."

Not a Hobby

The former vice president to Bill Clinton -- who worked seven years as a reporter before heading into politics -- said his move into television wasn't going to be just a passing fancy or short-term ordeal. He said he's in it for the long haul.

"I don't ever expect to be a candidate for office again," he said in an interview. "I'm not being coy. I'm really enjoying life after politics."

Besides his new network, which he will head directly, Gore sits on the board of Apple Computer and is a senior advisor to Internet search powerhouse Google.

Right now the network is available in 17 million homes, but Hyatt told the New York Times he hoped to see it in 50 million homes in five years.

Currently, NWI is distributed as part of DirecTV's Total Choice Package, as well as on Time Warner Cable's network.

"To expand further, Mr. Gore's group will have to persuade Cox Communications, Cablevision and other major cable operators to carry their network, which still does not have a director of programming," the Times said.

Daunting Task

That's going to be a daunting enough task, but what may be even more difficult is the task of attracting advertisers.

William K. Geppert, the vice president for Cox Communications -- one of the country's largest cable operators -- says most major news networks reach 80 million households.

"Seventeen million is not 80 million," he said. "It's good start, but there's a long way to go. If you have distribution, advertising follows."

Analysts say it takes 30 million homes before major advertisers even notice.

Dealing With the Devil?

Perhaps ironically, in order to grow the network, Gore will likely have to strike a deal with the devil.

Since his days as a lawmaker in the 1980s, Gore has been a heavy critic of cable networks. "During the late 1980's," the Washington Post reported, "he used congressional hearings to publicly berate companies for raising monthly rates at a pace that far exceeded inflation."

Gore also accused large cable networks of using their ownership of the wires reaching into millions of homes to decide which cable channels were successful and which were not.

In a flip-flop moment reminiscent of former colleague and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, Gore changed his tune when asked about his former views. "There have been so many changes in this industry in the last 12 years," he said.

Editor's note: