Al Gore, Businessman

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The concept for Current TV has evolved substantially since Gore and Hyatt, an old friend and political ally, started talking in December 2001 about developing a new way of delivering the news. They thought of creating a left-leaning political website or a liberal alternative to Fox News. Ultimately, Gore and Hyatt assembled 21 investors who put up a reported $70 million with which they last year bought Newsworld International (NWI), an international news channel, from Vivendi. The fact that nearly all of them are also big Democratic contributors (including Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy, MTV creator and former America Online exec Bob Pittman and Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein's financier husband Richard Blum) has raised questions about whether they are investing in Gore's business plan--or doing him a favor. "There may be a mixture of motives," concedes Orville Schell, dean of the journalism school at the University of California, Berkeley, and a board member of Current TV.

That's why it's no small irony that the biggest boon to the venture came from none other than media baron Rupert Murdoch, whose Fox News Channel Gore once called a "fifth column" that has turned "daily Republican talking points into the definition of what's objective." Chances are, Current TV would never have got even this far had Murdoch not given it NWI's existing slot on his DirecTV satellite system, which accounts for 14.5 million of the nearly 20 million households Current reaches. It's a big start toward the 50 million Gore hopes to attain in five years. "Rupert Murdoch right now is the biggest contributor to the possible success of Current," says John Higgins, business editor of Broadcasting and Cable magazine.

There are those who say if Current TV does succeed, it could help pave the way for Gore's re-entry into politics. But Gore, who so long ago studied television as a means to a political end, is not among them. There is "close to a zero-percent chance," he insists, that he would ever run for office again. "I feel liberated by not being a candidate ... I'm learning on the job every day, and that is so much fun. It really is." And it sounds as if he means it. --With reporting by J.F.O. McAllister/London