A Real World alumna, a former Miss USA, the host of Fox’s Love Cruise and several former Channel One staffers, are among early talent at Current, the youth-targeting network backed by Al Gore and Democratic fund-raiser Joel Hyatt.
The independent network, which will program mostly viewer-submitted short-form videos, launches Aug. 1.
Viewers in Current’s 18-34 target demo who grew up watching in-school news network Channel One will be familiar with some of the names. Current’s President of Programming, David Neuman, served as president of programming at Channel One for five years starting in 1992.
Gotham Chopra, for example, will serve as a producer, reporter and host for Current programming. He started his on-air career as an anchor for Channel One News and a producer of specials for PBS.
Laura Ling, who will serve as on-air reporter and manager of Current’s original enterprise video journalism division, also began as a producer for Channel One News before going on to have her work featured on ABC’s Nightline, NBC, PBS and others.
Rawley Valverde, a Current producer, reporter, and host, put in five years as a Channel One reporter/producer before reporting for Access Hollywood and the Las Vegas Fox affiliate.
Others among the 11 on-air talent members Current announced Monday: Amaya Brecher, a Real World: Hawaii cast member and former teen investigative reporter for San Francisco’s KRON-TV; Justin Gunn, most recently a reporter for Extra and ABC Family Channel and host of Fox’s reality show, Love Cruise; Shauntay Hinton, a former Miss USA who has hosted and reported for King World Productions, Fox Sports, Lifetime and Twentieth Television; and Kinga Philipps, a broadcast-trained journalist who has written children’s books and appeared in movies and TV shows including The West Wing, Cold Case and According to Jim.
According to Current , the net will launch in 20 million U.S. homes through deals with DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Comcast.
Its short-form content will be organized by themes including technology, politics and spirituality, finance, fashion and music.
News will be provided on the half-hour via Google Current, a program that picks its stories according to the most-searched-for topics on the web.
