IT'S a free-wheeling new TV service, perhaps in its own modest way Bermuda's answer to al-Jazerra - the Arab-language television station which intends to break the monopoly of Western news services like CNN and the BBC in their region. The recently launched Fresh TV has broad ambitions. And I certainly get the impression that it is going to give its local competitors a run for their money and, in the process, change the way television service is presented in Bermuda as far as its local content is concerned.

I have been toying with the idea of conducting an interview for this Commentary with Fresh TV's creator Elmore Warren for some time. I having known Elmore Warren for many years and, of course, was delighted when he launched his Al & Criff show - featuring all Bermudian content - a number of years ago. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Recently I went to Fresh TV's operations on Court Street to set up an interview, which Elmore readily agreed for the following Monday. I must say that it did not have as auspicious a start as I would have hoped. I do not know why I did not correctly read the sign on Vision House which said, "Do not knock taping in process'".

Well a soft knock was proceeded by some rather loud knocking on my part. An agitated voice came from within: "Just a minute!" It certainly did seem like I was interrupting something. Seconds later a hand emerged from behind the door, grabbed me and yanked me inside. Elmore sat me down in the centre of the studio. I still did not get it. I began following Elmore towards a mass of television monitors, mumbling a weak apology. He grabbed my hand again: "SIT, SIT ..."

After I did get it, I remember thinking if anyone was going to pull this off he had to be the one. My interruption happened while Fresh TV was taping its nightly news programme but Elmore, who was supervising and directing the whole thing, remained as cool as ever.

So I was going to witness the taping of a news broadcast - although by this time I was well aware that a television news station is not where I belong: I am better off sticking to writing. The news broadcast proved to be interesting, seeing it from the inside, so to speak. The news reader was concerned about the mistake she made during the reading of the news. Again Elmore calmed her down, reminding her that any mistakes would be fixed before the show hit the airwaves.

Before the interview began I asked one of the technicians directions to the bathroom. But I think he still had suspicions about me as he pointedly warned me about the snake pit of wires pouring out of the television monitors. He was right to be concerned. I do at times make the British comic character Mr. Bean look almost normal given some of the miss-steps I have made. But I did manage to negotiate the cables without incident.

With the taping of the news broadcast put to bed, it was time for the interview with Elmore.

I reminded him that I remembered him as a youngster, always seeming to be playing around, making jokes. But he said it was not like that. He got both a sense of free spiritedness and a serious grounding from his family, from them and his family church on Angle Street, the original Church of God, started by his great great grandfather, the Rev. Edward Byam Grant, who came here from Antigua and started the First Church of God on Angle Street around 1905.

It was to be that same church that formed the bedrock of Elmore's character and his outlook on the world. Growing up he never heard of what he couldn't do, hearing instead that he could do whatever in the world he wanted. This seems to be the message hammered into a young Elmore by the church's elder sisters, many of whom were Sunday School teachers.

People like Nellie Francis, Mrs. Payne and others like them who constantly reminded their young charges that even if things in life seemed to be against you, you could always do better - let adversity spur you on rather than frustrate or embitter you.

He came to create the Al & Criff TV show because he felt the island was crying out to find itself and this was going to be his contribution. But first he would go back to school, to Ruskin College in Oxford, to study media. But the limited programmes were open to too few people so he decide not to put his life on hold by returning to college.

He had already studied mass communications and once Al & Criff got its first sponsor, it was off and running. Al & Criff was all about positives. It did segments on black history that always ended on a positive note. And something that we in Bermuda did not know, Al & Criff was sold to international markets in the Caribbean, America and the UK, and it won contests overseas.

Elmore also began to do corporate work, gaining more and more experience in the communications and media field.

And now he is attempting to yoke the expertise and experience he has gained in recent years to what he hopes will eventually become Bermuda's third television station, one based on Court Street. Was this a dream of his?

He laughed and said that I was the first person to ask him this question. He answered by saying that Fresh TV was not a dream; to his mind it was his destiny.

And I suppose that an iron sense of destiny is greater than a gossamer dream. Dreams can be postponed or denied or even forgotten. But Elmore says that the vision he had did not come into being until he saw the building which he now occupies. Mr. Robert Trew, the owner of the building wanted him to have it, but it would be his wife who would see the deal through.

ELMORE says that he could not walk away from his destiny, so what is Fresh TV all about? What is going to be its programme agenda? It is to bring a whole new flavour to local broadcasting, with the Bermuda community at its centre.

Will he attempt to attain an overseas network affiliation like his competitors? Elmore is sure on that - no that is not the way Fresh TV is going to go. Because with such agreements, you assume the agenda of your parent company; you lose your own agenda, your own identity.

You have a corporate identity imposed on you. Up 'til now, Bermuda's other television stations have never had to have a locally-geared philosophy. Fresh TV, once it gets itself organised, will force that on local TV because it will go where they don't go. It will report on those areas that current local TV don't deal with.

Well, what is the philosophy of Fresh TV? To think internationally, act globally, and bring something new to the community which helps it to see itself positively and realise that there is something more than the pop culture that comes from America or the world views of Britain and Europe.

Part of that is the type of music videos Fresh TV shows, highlighting the world music of Africa and the Caribbean. I asked him how these are going over and he says he is getting favourable comments. This is part of the move to get Bermudians to look outside the traditional areas of influence and embrace the world.

I finished the interview thinking that Fresh TV is on to something here, all we have to do is support it and make it our vision for the country.