As internet technologies improve, making the internet faster, more companies and individuals are recognizing the strength of the internet as a way of delivering entertainment to the public. It is now possible to broadcast television, and radio across the internet.

To view or listen to an internet broadcast you must have a streaming media player installed on your computer. There are three main players available for free:


Real Player Windows Media Quicktime

An increasing number of radio stations broadcast live over the internet. By broadcasting over the internet, a local station can reach an international audience. As with all media broadcasting over the internet, a slow connection will yield lower quality. Countless radio stations across the world currently broadcast live audio over the internet. It is now possible to hear your favourite station from anywhere in the world as long as you have access to a fast internet connection. Several local radio stations are broadcasting live over the internet. To listen, click on one of the following links.

Although many radio stations are using the internet to broadcast, tools are available that make it possible for anyone with an internet connection to broadcast over the internet. Check this site out for a guide to broadcasting over the internet. There are already thousands of people broadcasting live from their homes. Some advantages of broadcasting over the internet rather than over the airways are: the cost (other than connection fees, it's free); you can reach a worldwide audience; no license is needed; and there are no FCC rules and guidelines to follow. To hear what people are broadcasting visit these sites:

  • Live 365 - Create your own radio station or listen to one of the thousands others have created.
  • Spinner.com - Offers hundreds of channels of music in several varieties.
  • Eyada - World's only talk show internet network.

Video on the internet is a relatively new technology. Only recently  have computers become fast enough to encode video and store it digitally. As the speed of the internet increases and more people connect using faster connections such as cable modems, video feeds over the internet become more useful. A regular telephone connection is too slow to make viewing streaming video convenient and useful to the average viewer.

Sites such as CNN often accompany their news stories with short video clips. Other sites offer entire movies online. With new digital cameras and film editing software available for your computer, making a small movie is within most people's price range. Several film makers display their work online. There is no distribution cost when distributing online and their potential audience is enormous. To check out what films are available online, visit one of these sites:

These sites allow viewers to rate the movies and comment on them. Film makers get to display their work for free and get instant access to a large audience. Several film makers have already signed contracts with large studios after displaying their work on the internet.

The future of video delivery over the internet is promising. Each year the internet becomes more of a multimedia medium, combining sound pictures and video. As technologies improve, making the internet faster and able to deliver audio and video at qualities that rival television, perhaps we will see a convergence of television, radio and the internet into one medium. Television is becoming more interactive with digital cable and webTV--it seems that the border between television and the internet is already getting fainter.

Recently, a company decided to take the next step and start re-broadcasting television on the internet. IcraveTV is a Canadian company that recently started broadcasting television over the internet. Unfortunately, American television networks did not like the fact that this company was broadcasting their shows without their permission and threatened legal action. Being a small internet company without the funds to challenge the large American TV networks, IcraveTV backed down and stopped broadcasting. To read more about this, visit CNN.

Although this company did not succeed, it shows you what is possible. What does the future of the internet and television look like? Follow the links below to see what the future of television might look like.

  • Future Television 201x - A look at the future of television.
  • The Road Ahead - Interesting site based on the book by Bill Gates.
  • M2 - New internet only music channel by MTV.
  • Yahoo! - Yahoo's links to television on the internet.

Michael Thicke