How much time do college kids typically spend watching 24/7 cable news networks?

The obvious, depressing, yet realistic answer is not much, at all.

And who can blame them really? Given the choice between polar opposite heavyweights CNN and FOX News - cable's archetypal "liberal" and "conservative" 24/7 news networks - most college students turn off their TV or change the channel to something usually far more relevant and interesting to them.

Unless they're political science nerds or journalism junkies, many college students feel no need whatsoever to keep up with international affairs, up-to-the-minute updates on the Obama administration or incredibly biased half hour rants with broadcasters literally shouting their self-promoting political doctrine (ahem, Olbermann and O'Reilly, for example).

The simple explanation behind most college students' indifferent attitude towards traditional 24/7 cable news networks is because networks like CNN and FOX News don't really cater to (or seem to care about) younger viewers.

Currently, while most of the media chooses to focus on the slow, torturous death of newspapers, fewer journalists are examining the concurrent problems facing broadcast news companies. Given the fact that college students "are the future," cable news networks' lack of attention towards younger people can be seen as yet another one of the many problems facing the news business during this dark time of economic crisis for news organizations - print, broadcast or otherwise.

As has been already been examined and exhausted in the past few years, many young people have turned to Comedy Central (i.e. comedians, NOT journalists, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert) for a news outlet.

Besides Comedy Central, many college students (if they seek out news at all) get their news straight off their computer. Who needs to watch Anderson Cooper when you can go to sites like Digg, Reddit and read user-submitted blogs and stories of your choice? As more and more young people turn off their TV's and turn to the Internet as their primary news source, network news stations may soon find themselves in the same dilemma newspapers now face.

Enter Current TV (channel 122 in Oxford on Time Warner Cable). What is it?

According to their Web site (www.current.com), "since its inception in 2005, Emmy award-winning Current TV has been the world's leading peer-to-peer news and information network."

That sounds nice, but where does the college student interest come into play, the "what about me" part?

As their "about Current" section continues, "Current is the only 24/7 cable and satellite television network and Internet site produced and programmed in collaboration with its audience. Current connects young adults with what is going on in their world, from their perspective, in their own voices."

To clarify, here's a comparison between Current and a similar news network most young people familiarized themselves with in high school.

Remember Channel One News? That 12-minute daily news show your teachers forced you to sit through in high school? Well, Current is kind of like that.

Just like how Channel One caters to high school students, Current's target audience is younger people, like a new and improved continuation of Channel One.

A pleasant surprise in all this news mess is that many college students look back on Channel One and realize it was relatively enjoyable for a news program.

The ties between Channel One and Current don't end there. For example, former Channel One anchor Derrick Shore has had several of his "pods" played on Current.

What's a pod? According to the "Make TV" page at www.current.com, pods are "self-contained videos, usually under seven minutes, that tell a story, profile a character and/or share an idea."

Throughout the past four years, Current has built a steady following, receiving rave reviews from its target audience.

Sonya Mueller, University of Cincinnati (UC) electronic media senior and former assistant general manger of UC's campus television station, is one college student who has found in Current's pods what she's been looking for from mainstream 24/7 news networks. After being introduced to Current from a fellow electronic media student and browsing their website she was hooked.

"Many 24-hour broadcast news stations have a hidden, or sometimes not so hidden, agenda," Mueller said. "Current does not. If you have an idea that you think maybe only one other person will find interesting, you can do it!"

This is thanks to Current's array of topics, from underage prostitutes in Dubai to the heroin trade coming out of Afghanistan. Mueller appreciates the range of stories Current has to offer.

"There is such a variety of stories (on Current) from humanitarian issues with Vanguard, to celebrity gossip, to political issues that you have the ability to choose your news," she said. "You don't have to watch the latest Britney Spears mishap, if you could care less. 24 hour broadcast news (like CNN and FOX) doesn't allow that."

Besides catering to college students' interests through their stories, Current also takes time to visit campuses, spread the word about their company and encourage user-submitted stories.

For the past few months, Mueller has been e-mailing back and forth with Current's management, trying to get them to come to UC for a session on who they are and what young people can do for them with their Web site and cable station.

For those unfamiliar with Current, to summarize what they are all about, Mueller said, "Current is a warehouse of videos, similar to YouTube minus the junk, that are about issues that young people carry about. Some videos are viewer-created, some are by the Current staff and some are by famous investigative reporters like Lisa Ling."

Unlike traditional 24/7 news networks, Current's content relies heavily on user feedback and ratings.

"With Current, the audience determines the outcome," Mueller said. "It really exemplifies 'the people's news.'"

Going hand-in-hand with their democratic style of deciding what's newsworthy, Current also serves as an outlet for budding journalists, filmmakers and editors to get a project published, noticed and most importantly, get paid for doing it. For example, viewers who create an advertisement or video that airs on TV get paid for doing so.

Who's behind this groundbreaking news network? While Al Gore may or may not have invented the Internet and may or may not be profiting from global warming, as co-founder and chairman of the board for Current, he is largely responsible for the network's revolutionary news delivery style and interactive Web site. Current's other co-founder, Joel Hyatt, has been named one of BusinessWeek's top 50 business leaders in the U.S.

As significant as Current's co-founders were in the creation of the groundbreaking company, in the words of Jay-Z, what matters now is "most importantly you, the customer" in maintaining this 21st century viewer-oriented news network for young people. Tune in and get your learn on (and like it).