Archive notice: This article was originally published on January 18, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The displacement of traditional television by the internet is being driven forward above all by the growing online distribution of video content. A study published in December concluded that 61 percent of German internet users would, if in doubt, rather give up television than surfing the web. The latest development in the video boom: users create their own shows and broadcast them live online via dedicated online TV platforms. Portals such as kyte.tv http://www.kyte.tv are enjoying steadily rising popularity.
The boom in internet video content is primarily driven by its technological possibilities. On the one hand, consuming TV content online offers users the advantage of being able to choose the place and time of transmission freely. Video podcasts, for example, can be loaded onto a mobile phone or video iPod and watched on the move. On the other hand, the internet’s return channel also allows users to interact with programme makers. Web interactivity opens up many new possibilities today: viewers become producers of their own content. “User Generated Content” is becoming an important factor in the new TV culture and overcomes the traditional separation between consumers and producers.
Anyone dissatisfied with the current TV programme can now become active and produce their own shows. Video services such as kyte.tv, which work in a web browser with a standard webcam as well as with an integrated mobile-phone camera, enable self-made contributions to be broadcast live. According to the web TV service, it currently operates almost 300,000 different channels with user programmes. The individual channel operator can even see how many viewers are sitting in front of a PC or mobile phone watching the shows.
For now, however, audience figures for such self-made shows remain rather modest. Between one and 300 users watch such programmes on average. To reach a larger audience, creators can also embed their own video contributions on external websites or social-networking sites such as Facebook.
