A Current Event

It is never a good sign when a company has to announce major changes a few months after it undergoes a series of major changes, like a rock station which was playing techno three months ago after playing classical music for years. (I just wish they would be more honest about why it is happening. There is nothing sadder than a press release announcing yet another format change to a station where everyone tries to sound upbeat. It would be like repainting a room twice in three months, all the while maintaining there was nothing wrong with the last color, you just like to keep things fresh. Just admit the last change didn't work and move on.) So, when Current TV announced in 2012 that it was going to be shifting its programming focus just one year after announcing it was going to be changing it programming focus (which came only a couple years after changing its format as well as its name), you got the idea the channel wasn't doing so hot. With it's far-left leanings you would have thought this election cycle would have brought the station a major bump in ratings, but apparently not. Yesterday it was announced that the channel was being sold to Arab news network Al Jezeera. Now, the news was delivered via a fairly standard press release. What was interesting was the reaction to this news.

It seems like a lot of people are questioning what this means for the station and what tone it will take in the future (if it even has a future). I can't help but wonder why so many people are interested in what happens to a channel that I can guarantee none of them watch? The sale has generated far more buzz than the channel's rating would suggest are warranted. To make a sports analogy, it would be like ESPN breaking into their programming to announce an MLS team was firing their coach. Sure, there are pockets of the country were that will be big news, but most people ignore the MLS. I can only assume the attention is because of who is doing the buying. Al Jezeera is operated out of Quatar, which I'm sure just conjures up all sorts of images in certain people's minds. For example, I'm sure there will be some businesses who question whether or not advertising on Current will now send a bad message to some of the more conservative areas of the country who immediately associate Arabs with terrorists. (It doesn't matter that it isn't true. This is public perception we are talking about and truth has no place in that.) The only good news for Current is that I'm pretty sure those people weren't loyal viewers and their ratings won't suffer much.

Leaving the bigotry aside for a moment, this once again raises the interesting debate of whether or not the politics of the major corporations which own the channels you watch or the stores you frequent should matter. Over the summer people questioned whether or not consumers should still buy food from Chik-Fil-A after it was revealed they favored bans on gay marriage. After a heated debate the people's love of fried chicken won out and the company appears to be doing just fine. By and large it appears most people were willing to concede that corporations are large operations with many fingers in many pies and one arm should not be held responsible for what the other arm may be doing. Basically, as long as you provide enough entertainment or cheap food people are willing to overlook a lot of things. (It should be pointed out that it is not as if Current TV's previous owner, Comcast, was any great friend of mine. I may not know anything about Al Jazeera's political leanings, but I do know they never taped-delayed the Olympics like NBC, which is also owned by Comcast, did. Comcast may only have owned 10% of Current but that was enough for it to be guilt by association.) I guess the only remaining question is how much entertainment Current actually provides? If Al Jazeera is content with the ratings the station is pulling in than this story will go away fairly quickly. If they start to change all their programming to a more Middle Eastern-centric format (which, given the stations meager fanbase, is totally within their rights), than this story will keep lingering on.

Of course, none of this actually matters to me, because I don't watch CurrentTV. In fact, I'm only vaguely aware of where it is on my channel guide. I think I may have breezed passed it on a few occasions and, because I love list shows, I think I briefly stopped on it to watch Morgan Spurlock's series, "50 Documentaries To See Before You Die." Beyond that the few times I passed it I found their far-left ramblings just as obnoxious as the far-right leanings of Fox News, only Current TV's seemed somehow sadder because of the stations low ratings. (Fox News may be doing the same thing, but at least they have an audience whereas Current has the feeling of the hippy on the corner handing out a newsletter that people are immediately throwing in the closest trash can.) They can take it off the air for all I care because it will be one fewer channel to have to scroll passed as I head towards the channels I actually enjoy watching. But that doesn't change the fact that the debate as a whole is interesting to me. I just hope if cable providers ultimately decide to no longer carry Current they do so strictly because of TV ratings and not because of who owns the channel. Because, believe me, if you start looking in to who owns which cable channels and what they are into, you probably won't like what you find.