Current TV, via Associated PressA Current TV host, Cenk Uygur, left, with former Vice President Al Gore, the network’s co-founder.Current TV’s audience is small — very small. The channel’s executives freely admit that in conversations, and will probably say so again on Friday when they hold a news conference with TV reporters gathered in Los Angeles.
But when the executives study the numbers, they say they see a trend that they like. Their viewers tend to be much younger than the viewers of cable news channels like Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.
On the night of the Iowa caucuses, for instance, the average viewer of Current was 36 years old. Granted, there were only 47,000 of them at any given time that evening — but they were youthful, which might help Current attract higher rates for advertisements in the future.
The average age of the 1.3 million people who watched CNN’s coverage of the Iowa caucuses was 56. For Fox News, which had 2.6 million viewers, the average age was 63; for MSNBC, which had 1.2 million viewers, the average age was 65.
Current is positioning itself as an independent alternative to those cable news channels, and in particular MSNBC, which shares its leftward bent in prime time. Six months ago, Current added an evening broadcast by Keith Olbermann, formerly of MSNBC. Though there have been backstage tensions between Current and Mr. Olbermann — notably, he was absent on the night of the Iowa caucuses — he is planning to lead the channel’s coverage on future election nights.
Because Mr. Olbermann declined to anchor special coverage of the Iowa caucuses, the night became an experiment of sorts. In his place were Cenk Uygur, the channel’s new 7 p.m. host; Jennifer Granholm, soon to be the channel’s 9 p.m. host; and Al Gore, the channel’s co-founder. When the ratings came in, the channel’s executives were struck by the low median age of the audience. The trio also appeared together on the night of the New Hampshire primary, but those ratings are not yet in, Current said.
Mr. Olbermann and his program, “Countdown,” are the biggest draws by far for the channel; including all the replays, “Countdown” had an average of 311,000 viewers in the fourth quarter of the year. The average age of the viewers was 58.
At any given time in the fourth quarter, only 28,000 viewers watched Current, though that is an improvement from prior quarters. The average age was 49.
Current added Mr. Uygur’s 7 p.m. program in early December, and although the viewership is low, it is also a bit younger than the channel as a whole, with an average age of 47.
At a presentation at the Television Critics Association press tour on Friday, Current will showcase Mr. Uygur and Ms. Granholm, implicitly promoting the fact that it has hosts besides Mr. Olbermann, who is on vacation this week.