A Tangled Web

TV and internet in Northern Germany

Consumers produce their own TV contents. This becomes possible thanks to the interactive city portal TVenty.de from Hamburg, produced by TVzweinull in cooperation with the »Hamburger Morgenpost« newspaper. TVenty has its own editorial staff creating contents for topics like gastronomy, party, shopping or culture. Besides this the customers are invited to upload their own videos or comment existing contents.

One thing is certain, internet TV, video communities and peer-to-peer TV (P2P) have triggered a real boom, particularly amongst young users. It can no longer be overseen that the good old television is facing strong, worldwide competition from the internet.
It is, of course, obvious that TV content will, in the future, be distributed more via the internet. It is also a fact that television channels have had their day as being the only platform for the distribution of audiovisual content. Young people, in particular, feel drawn, almost as if by magic, to video sites such Google’s subsidiary, YouTube, and are increasingly turning to the internet and into the download era. The fear which broadcasters have, namely that the favoured young target group will no longer watch their early evening soaps and, instead, watch online video sites is understandable - and well founded.

Success not always so sure

The internet may open totally new forms of TV for the viewer and the initiators sometimes also come into great wealth, as was the case with YouTube. Yet this is not always the case for the many other ambitious internet pioneers, the many adventurers, who also want a piece of the cake for themselves. Success and bankruptcy are often very close together. It is, nevertheless, enough to put at least a little fear into conventional, real time television.
At Europe’s biggest television trade fair, the Mip-TV in Cannes, considerable irritation about this new competition from the internet could be felt amongst the television producers, film buyers and station bosses. Television, which is now getting on a bit is, justifiably, worried about its selling points which used to be unique. It can no longer be ignored that several TV companies will be considerably ruffled by this increased competition; some may not even survive it. Gone are the days when the heads of programme decided what would be shown on our screens and when. Today’s @-generation ticks differently and wants to be its own producer and maker.

Online adventurers

If you take a look at the internet TV site, Global-ITV (www-global-itv.com), there are, meanwhile, over 10,000 new internet broadcasters like this worldwide, most of which are free and freely available. Top of these charts is, of course, the USA with over 2,000 stations followed by Germany with 900. That these various developments have their origins, like many other trends, in the »homeland« of television, i.e. the USA, will hardly come as a great surprise to anyone. A few years ago, before »good old Germany« recognised the new trend, a format called »Rocketboom« created a furore in the USA. The format, which began in 2004 with around 700 viewers a day, now counts, with more than 300,000 downloads per day, to the world’s most successful video blogs.

Another form which is also flourishing in this vast television landscape is call-in TV. As good money can be earned with this, more and more stations are financing themselves with telephone calls from viewers, frenzied fee payers. From simple, almost intelligence insulting quiz questions, to consumer tips, advice, stock exchange and nutrition tips, to star predictions - the daily surge of calls makes not only the telephones ring but also the cash tills. Older viewers, in particular, or those who are not so skilled with the internet, prefer to use the phone and are then often surprised when they receive a high telephone bill. Mobile phone - the favourite »toy« of German kids and others who are still young at heart, will also, in the future, be increasingly used as a mobile platform for TV offers.

New business models needed

In order to keep up with these changing consumer needs and not let standard television become a totally outdated model, the private and public TV stations need to come up with new business models. Yet their relationship to the web is somewhat ambivalent as it is not only their digital competition which is lurking here. So-called IPTV represents new and alternative means of circulation. For the broadcasting services, IPTV (Internet Protocol Television), which describes the transmission of broadband applications such as TV programmes or films via a digital data network, signifies an additional possibility for increasing cable distribution compared to the classic means of distribution until now, such as terrestrial, cable and satellite. There are, meanwhile, many things which speak in favour of television being increasingly via the »parallel universe« Internet Protocol, even though many of the projects, until now, have had a pilot nature to them.

Television on call

Broadcasters are also seeing opportunities for tapping into new income sources in pay services and lucrative download offers. The internet, in particular, is the ideal ground for video pay services, for example, which are currently sprouting up all over the place.
Audio and video sites in the internet enable television which is independent of time and which involves media users. This also has a special significance for the public providers which are still financing themselves primarily from TV license fees. Now, the public broadcasters are increasingly being forced online, yet not because of the financing – online advertising is taboo for them. The main target group of their online activities is a young audience which can, today, hardly be found in classic public television.

IPTV, in various forms, is increasingly winning over the viewers of classic providers. More and more digital sub-channels are being created which are orientated towards special target groups or regions. This can be seen with, for example, the Hamburg based black music channel Yavido.
To this also come digital programmes from providers who, until now, had nothing to do with television but which have, meanwhile, developed into unexpected competitors. Newspaper publishers are now also producing their own video clips for their internet sites – for example the Axel Springer or the Bauer Media Group. Today, almost all football associations of the premier federal league have their own online TV channel for which a fee must usually be paid. One example is HSV-TV offering all HSV federal league football games, exclusive interviews or reports from the training camp. The same alpplies to Werder Bremen's internet TV station »Werder TV« One thing is certain: The »tangled web« between television and internet remains intriguing!

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