Made-by-Viewers TV

WSJ.com - Seeking a Youthful Audience, Little Cable Channel Presents Features Filmed by Neophytes By CHRISTOPHER LAWTON : "What some people really want to do is direct.

After a decade of the Internet revolutionizing the way people communicate and spend their leisure time, a growing number of consumers are going further -- creating entertainment and other media "content" on their own. Cable networks, radio stations -- even advertisers -- are embracing such "user-generated content" and serving it up, hoping to appeal to new and younger audiences that are impatient with standard media fare.

This new genre of Do-It-Yourself Media harks back in some ways to public-access cable TV, to funny home videos and radio call-in shows. But it's slicker and more sophisticated. For a generation of young people raised on the Internet, it is second nature to express themselves in new ways. These aren't passive consumers: They think they have something to say and they don't see why they can't do what the big media companies are doing.

In a series this week, The Wall Street Journal explores how Do-It-Yourself Media in various forms is creating a kind of parallel media universe. Today's article describes Al Gore's Current TV, which is helping to fill its 24 hours of daily programming with films made by viewers. Subsequent articles will look at how advertisers are soliciting ad ideas from their consumers, how cable operators are asking viewers to contribute material for dating services and real-estate channels and how phone companies are encouraging contributions to video logs."

Current, the cable channel partly owned by former Vice President Al Gore. Hoping to lure young viewers who have grown disillusioned with traditional media outlets, Current is taking a different approach to current-affairs TV -- one that goes well beyond news and into lifestyle and other subjects. Rather than relying solely on reporters and editors to produce stories, the channel is trying to generate up to half of its programming from members of the public. It uses its Web site to gather feedback from the public on what it should air and pays modestly for those videos it chooses to run.

To attract new talent, Current has been visiting public venues such as clubs, film festivals and concerts in major cities around the country. At one such event recently, the Big Apple Film Festival in New York, representatives circulated through a crowd leaving a movie, handing out fliers and directing people to a Current van parked outside where more information was available. On this particular night, it was too cold for more than a handful of people to stop by.

Contributors needn't be viewers. Mr. Nemoyten, the college student who profiled a rock band, doesn't even have cable and learned about Current this year in part from an ad posted on the Internet announcing a contest for the best five-minute video. The prize: a $3,000 budget to produce segments to air on Current.

A 21-year-old cinema major at San Francisco State University, Mr. Nemoyten saw an opportunity. He shot footage of a local band, interviewed its members and entered a video in the contest. He didn't win the prize, but Current selected the piece to run on the channel, paying him $250. The video subsequently aired more than a dozen times a week for six weeks.

And that was just the start for Mr. Nemoyten. Current hired him to help shoot a second story, about a group of musicians raising money for charity, which he has completed. Not that he wants to be a journalist long term. His preference, he says, is to produce narrative film."