October 02, 2003
Al "Rupert Murdoch" Gore
It has been reported that Al Gore is in talks to buy a cable TV channel. He and his group of investors want to set up a liberal news outlet to counteract the Fox News Channel, which is decidedly conservative. The channel they are hoping to buy, Newsworld International, is currently only available in 20 million US homes. They would seem to be hoping that other cable providers would pick it up.
I really don't get this. There are already liberal news outlets available in the US market. I believe they are known as ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN. This is the very reason Fox is doing so well and is the most widely watched news channel in the States. All that Gore will be able to do is take a small slice of this already well-divided pie. He's not going to take any viewers away from Fox.
However, when the Nielsen ratings are released, I'm sure that Al will declare himself the real winner, at least amongst viewers in Florida. In a few years, he will remind us that he actually invented the whole idea of cable news channels.