Channel 4

Channel 4 Website- the main website for the Channel 4 family: Ch4, E4, More4, Film4, 4Radio and 4oD

The website is a modern style and easy to use.

Social groups: Mostly Teenagers and young adults because of the large amount of entertainment and lifestyle programmes. Channel 4 does attract other groups such as men with horse racing and cars. The documentary programmes can attract a range of people who want to learn and question questions.

Channel 4 does a lot to help people reach the careers they wish to with the 4unsigned music helping to promote signers to others so that they might get signed and 4Talent helps to get people into the media business with grants, schemes and useful tips. They help to show independent work with people being able to upload their own 4laughs clips and documentaries.

There is lots of interactivity with many forum discussions on a range of topics, competitions, quizzes and games to do.

There has been convergence with other forms of media watching TV online, getting alerts to your mobile and downloading music, clips and movies onto your iPod.

4oD online- you can watch TV programmes online- convergence of television with internet. Personalised as you choose when you want to watch the programmes Watch channel 4 online TV listings of all the channel 4 channels (Ch4, E4, More4, Film4, and Film4+1) so you know what is on all of the channels Competitions Forums for music, film, comedy etc.

This 40D service means you can be flexibile about when you watch your TV Shows and it offers a non-linear structure compared to television. This types of services are replacing TV as they are more personalised to viewers as they can choose in their convenience when they wish to watch TV.

ENTERTAINMENT

Film- quizzes, new films, DVD releases, trailers and clips, interviews, making movies and competitons

Music- 4unsigned, interviews, videos, reviews, competitions, quizzes, news and gossip New Music Month

Games

T4- Meet the crew

4laughs: video, audio, images, upload your stuff, user profiles, podcasts

LIFESTYLE

Cars- aimed at men, galleries, reviews, motor shows, celebrity drives, quizzes and competitions

Food- recipes, Gillian’s meal plans, Win Gastro weekend Health

Homes

Money- women’s financial independence, saving and spending, insurance, tax, being in business, pensions and retirement.

NEWS

Dispatches

Sport

DOCUMENTARIES

FourDocs- download onto your iPod, the history of documentary film making, upload your documentary

FourDocs Guides provide useful information on how to plan, shoot, edit and compress your documentary ready for uploading to FourDocs. If you need help with filmmaking or editing equipment, see our Budget Guide

INTERACT

4Talent- jobs, grants, schemes, 4talent (TV, Film, New Media, Radio and extras) Forums Mobile- Channel 4 News alerts, Cricket alerts and Hollyoaks alerts

RSS Feeds- New technology

What is RSS? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS provides a fast and effective way of keeping up-to-date with your favourite sites through web feeds. Whenever new content is added to the sites, these feeds are automatically updated. An RSS reader scans the feeds for any updates, and displays the latest headlines, plus a brief synopsis and a link that takes you to the source site. This process saves you from constantly revisiting your favourite sites to look for new content.

Channel 4 overall uses its website to advertise and market its programmes to audiences. They do this by trying to get viewers more intrested in programmes with competitions, quizzes and downloads.

Podcasts

Podcasts

Ricky Gervais
The Podfather, as his podcasts have been the most successful I thought it was only right to use a Ricky Gervais podcast. His podcasts are discussion between him and two other men in which they talk about news and topics in a comedic way. This comedy value along with Ricky’s fame made these podcasts so popular. In this podcast it is the last of the free series and they talk about people having to pay a small price to get future Ricky Gervais podcasts. This happened because they became so popular it was stupid not for them to be earning something out of it. The topics which arise in this podcast are the Guinness World Records, cult of Karl, romance, fish and dinosaurs etc. The podcast lasts 32mintues 4seconds in which the most random thing are discussed.

Podcast technology

‘A podcast is a media file which is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on portable media players and personal computers. Like 'radio', it can mean both the content and the method of syndication. The latter may also be termed podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster. The term "podcast" is a portmanteau of the name of Apple's portable music player, the iPod, and broadcast; a pod refers to a container of some sort and the idea of broadcasting to a container or pod correctly describes the process of podcasting. Though podcasters' web sites may also offer direct download or streaming of their content, a podcast is distinguished from other digital audio formats by its ability to be downloaded automatically, using software capable of reading feed formats such as RSS or Atom.’ WIKIPEDIA

Institutions
Many different institutions are doing podcasts as there popularity is growing, institutions like radio, TV and film.
Podcasts allow more publicity and using the internet for downloading them means there is a much greater reach.
This podcasts can have adverts at the beginning middle and end of them which means new types of advertising and ways to get more revenue.

Technology it is replacing
Listening to the Radio to hear a certain shows you want to hear now you can download the shows from the internet making radio less linear
Watching the news from TV

Theory
Flexibility- listen to the podcasts when you want to fit around your life
Convergence