New York — CENK UYGUR was pretty sure he had the makings of a good TV show.
Every afternoon, he and fellow liberal talk show hosts Ben Mankiewicz and Jill Pike spent three hours dishing about politics and pop culture for their irreverent Sirius Satellite Radio program "The Young Turks." They already had an avid fan base, including listeners who urged the trio to seek a larger audience.
So last year, the Los Angeles-based commentators shot a television pilot in a rented studio and shopped it to the cable news channels, buoyed by a letter-writing campaign to network executives from some of their followers.
No one bit. So Uygur and his co-hosts took the matter into their own hands. "We thought, 'If they're not going to put us on, let's put ourselves on.' "
With the help of some investors, the Young Turks bought four professional digital cameras and rented a studio space along Wilshire Boulevard's Miracle Mile. In mid-December, they began streaming their three-hour show every weekday on their website, www.theyoungturks.com, billing it as the first live Internet talk show.
In the process, they've helped pioneer the rapidly developing field of online programming -- from webcasts to video podcasts and vlogs (the video version of a blog) -- now delivering content that traditionally would have had to survive the television development season and pass the muster of network executives to find an audience.
"Anybody can own a broadcast power now," says Jeff Jarvis, who writes about media and technology on his blog BuzzMachine. "We're going to have more and more choices. TV will no longer be one-size-fits-all."
Until recently, original video programming on the Internet has resembled homemade films more than mainstream television shows, appealing to niche audiences with pieces focused largely on youth culture, tech wizardry or quirky personal stories. On one of the most popular sites, Rocketboom.com, host Amanda Congdon delivers a wry three-minute daily newscast about new gadgets and oddball stories. The site Vlogmap.org lists more than 480 vlogs in the U.S. alone, including the heavily trafficked 64mm.com, which boasts that it's "The First and Best Skateboarding VideoCast on the Net."
