Internet TV – an amazing combination

The television, colloquially called TV, is one of the traditional types of electronic media, together with the radio. A type of non-electronic medium is the print medium, and the oldest such medium is the newspaper. Until recently, the TV, the radio and the newspaper were the only types of media. Moreover, there was very little, or no interaction between them. But, with the expansion of the internet all of this changed. First of all, the internet became the most popular medium or media, if you want, since the internet can hardly be considered to be one particular medium. Another thing that changed was that the interaction between the different types of media increased. Newspapers are now available on the internet, as well as radio programs and televisions. Most people are now using their computers the only means of information. The internet TV , which is television broadcasted through the internet gained large popularity in the last few years.

Internet TV – basic notion

Any television program which is supplied to the viewers digitally, through the internet can be considered internet TV . This, however, is different from Web TV, which are short videos designed solely for the web. The internet protocol television, on the other hand is a technological improvement which enables better broadcast. If we want to be more specific and avoid ambiguity we would define the internet television as an activity of broadcasting television programs on the internet, usually by the technique called streaming. The term refers only to the content itself and not the technology of distribution. This type of television gained popularity when some of the leading TV houses introduced video services, such as: Demand Five and BBC iPlayer in the United Kingdom, RTÉ Player in the Republic of Ireland, Tivibu in Turkey and few others. Historically speaking, the first web television in the world is Tvonline. This television was established in 2005, by Angelos Diamantoulakis.

Why is internet TV so popular?!

The popularity of the internet TV is significantly influenced by the fact that the viewer can pick the particular content he or she wishes to watch. There are two main techniques of watching internet TV. The first is downloading the broadcasted material directly to the computer and the other is watching it via a media player. Due to the increased popularity of this type of television, all big broadcasting companies opened such on-demand websites for their viewers. Namely, the BBC iPlayer is used by more than one million viewers weekly. Many providers of this type of TV offer different formats and options which enable viewers to watch the content on different devices. Some services give the viewers the possibility to watch the program in HD. The streaming technology which is used today is an improvement compared to the peer-to-peer networks which were used in the past.

Internet TV – different concept, same market

One interesting fact about the internet TV is that it changed the way people watch TV, but it didn't change the market significantly. Most of the programs watched via the internet, are actually the same programs with the same content, only the medium is different.