Can't get on the network? Get on the Net (Dinosaur Media Extinction & Barf Alert)

LA Times ^ | March 18, 2006 | Matea Gold

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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, http://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.

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Way down in the article was this item: "The numbers are small — an average of 11,000 people tune in every day to the webcast of "The Young Turks," with an estimated 100,000 more listening in on the radio or through audio podcasts, according to the show."

[shiva]

according to the show.

LOL!

[pabianice]

Young Turks