Independent World Television?

international | arts and media | other press Thursday September 09, 2004 18:38 by redjade

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Independent World Television?

There's a proposal from a bunch of big name media activists and left leaning journalists to start, Independent World Television [ http://www.iwt.tv/ ], international progressive television news network. They aim to raise a fair amount of money, 100 million dollars, and have a professional staff of journalists while drawing on some AP and/or Reuters footage.

It seems like it's a cross between a progressive english language version of Al-Jazeera and a TV version of IPS.

The general drive seems to get alternative content out there to an audience, not change the relationships around which media production and consumption are built. This is quite different from the 'media revolution to make revolution possible' and 'become the media' missions of indymedia. I bet the two will co-exist similarly to the sometimes tense, sometimes cooperative relationship between democracy now and indymedia.

What i do wonder, is this. Is this the best strategy at the moment? Aren't we about to see a revolution in the way TV is transmitted similar to what is happening with VOIP in the telephony world? Will the 24 hour news channel go the way of the evening news? What are the implications to ubiquitous bandwidth, narrowcasting, very low cost barriers to entry for production, and the end of broadcast television?

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