For most of television’s lifespan, programming – often costing an arm and a leg to produce – has been left to professional production companies guided by deep-pocketed broadcasters. But in the digital age, the likes of Current TV are trying to erode that model.

The San Francisco-based TV and online broadcaster generates 30% of its programming from viewer-created content. According to Joanna Drake Earl, who heads up Current TV’s strategic partnerships and online studio, it’s all a part of ‘a mission to democratize television.’

‘When we went out to create our web presence more than three years ago, there were no YouTubes, and very minimal video sharing happening,’ says Earl, the opening keynote speaker at this year’s nextMEDIA, the digital media conference that runs just ahead of its Banff TV fest sister and is more entwined with it with each passing year. 

‘We really spent a lot of time thinking about how to build our organization from the ground up to embrace user feedback and user content creation,’ she adds, on the line from her office in San Francisco.

Current’s viewer-created content, or VC2, comes in the form of two- to 11-minute clips called ‘pods.’ The channel is dedicated to nonfiction programming created by and for young adults, enabling its audience to not only produce content, but also vote online for which VC2 should make the cut for TV broadcast.

Earl was the first executive to join company cofounders Al Gore and Joel Hyatt nearly five years ago. When it came time for her to map out the website that would drive Current’s vision, she had to rethink all the traditional considerations of a company website. Current’s site had to effectively invite people to view and create the network’s niche programming.

‘Instead of just building a site that was about marketing television programming and talent, we built a site to support a production community,’ she explains.

Current’s programming is broadcast into 38 million U.S. homes via DirecTV, Comcast, Dish Network and Time Warner Cable. Its expansion to the U.K. and Ireland this year on BSkyB will see it reach an additional 8.2 million homes.

While Current is growing a global media brand with a view to creating content for cross-platform distribution, Earl says the company has always seen television as the ultimate platform through which to reach audiences.

‘While young people continue to turn to the web for information – and to some extent entertainment – the hours that they spend watching television have continued to hold up, and it is the most emotionally powerful medium out there,’ she insists.

Current’s target audience is 18-35-year-olds, a demographic often ignored by traditional news and information programming, which tends to attract and reflect 50-plus audiences. According to Earl, Current indexes higher among 18-34-year-old males than any other existing cable TV network. In addition, 75% of Current’s viewers have an active laptop open while watching, and one-third seek out additional content from the website.

Also sure to be of interest to TV and digital media executives is Current’s unique advertising model. In addition to creating pods for broadcast, VC2 producers are invited to create promotional and advertising material for Current’s sponsors, which include Sony, Electronic Arts, Toyota and GE. It’s an initiative that can save sponsors on commercial production costs, while giving producers an opportunity to break into the industry.

For example, Sony will provide a creative brief about a type of advertisement it would like to have created. Viewers can access these briefs on the website and take a stab at producing their own commercial. These viewer-created ad messages, or V-CAMs, can be selected for broadcast on Current TV, and often get picked up by sponsors for distribution on other platforms.

‘There’s almost not a day that goes by that we don’t have people complementing us on our advertising model,’ says Earl. ‘It’s about peer-to-peer marketing. It’s raw and authentic.’

Earl is scheduled to convey her message to the nextMEDIA assembled on the morning of June 9.

www.currenttv.com