Read our verdict on the news blog

Al Gore promised to “democratise television” today with the launch in the UK of Current TV, his successful American channel aimed at a youth audience.

The user-generated programming will feature three to eight-minute short documentaries, known as pods, and half-hourly “news” bulletins describing the UK’s most popular Google search terms.

A third of the films will be made by members of the public and the rest voted onto the channel by viewers.

Mr Gore, the former US Vice President and chairman of Current TV, explained that mainstream television has lost its way, “For my generation of young people, television was such a magical new medium, it’s like a song by Jack Johnson, ‘It was magic at first’,” he said. “[But] a conversation that shuts out individuals becomes a bit stale.”

The politician turned environmentalist rejected suggestions that the channel would have a political agenda. “It’s not about political views and certainly not my political views.”

Current TV is available to Virgin and Sky viewers in the UK and Ireland, as the first step of the network’s plans to expand into other countries after attracting 40 million subscribers in the American television market.

The channel boasts it has "the keys to the Google mega-computer” from which they will show a bulletin every half an hour charting the most popular UK Google search terms.

This morning they revealed the most requested phrase over the weekend to be “Tamer Hassan”, an actor who has appeared in The Bill and Eastenders, while Soccer AM presenter Helen Chamberlain was at No 5, followed closely by “Helen Chamberlain naked” at six. More surprisingly, “debil” the Serbo-Croat for stupid was the fastest rising search term.

The first videos broadcast included a “guerrilla gardener” planting flowers in the streets of Central London under cover of darkness. The horticulturalists were filmed frozen in fear as a police van drove past, while the portentous voice-over announced: “The police turn a completely blind eye to these floral terrorists.”

Viewers wishing to contribute their own films can upload them to the website where other users vote for the best of them to graduate to the TV channel. Producers from Current TV then step-in to help edit and produce the video before it is broadcast.

Times recommends

• 'Quack' degrees will damage our university say academics
• Graduate gains wiped out by student debt says report
• Creative degrees ‘must be treated like science’