Each year during May, the television networks present their schedules to advertisers, a ritual which has become known as “Sweeps”.

The viewing figures during May determine the level of advertising revenue the networks can expect to get for the year ahead, and so all the big shows are débuted at this time.

However, this time there is a slight problem, as the sweeps have shown that prime time television in the States has lost six million viewers in a year.

Joint Reasons

There are two reasons for this, the first being the writers strike from the back end of last year and early this year which saw shows take an enforced hiatus and consequently made viewers make the switch to cable television and beyond.

However, the bigger and more important reason, is the increase of viewing options open to people now. From digital video recorders such as TiVo and on demand Web video, viewers now have more choice than ever before.

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KateModern, an interactive Web television series, created by EQAL exclusively for the social networking site Bebo is set to end on June 28th.

That will signal the end of series 2, and the makers have decided to leave it there although they haven’t ruled out reprising the drama at sometime in the future.

The series was the follow up to the viral hit LonelyGirl15, which fooled many in to thinking it was a real video diary rather than a carefully written and produced show.

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Hot on the heels of the news that NBC are offering free full episodes of two of their biggest shows to iPhone and iPod Touch users, comes the news that live TV is now also a possibility.

Orb Networks claims to have “the world’s first way to stream live TV to the iPhone and iPod Touch.” The application is called Orb Live, and it will work on all jailbroken Apple iPhones and iPod Touches.

Users can get access to the app by installing it on a home PC, and OrbLive on their iPhone or iPod Touch. You then just set the PC to stream live TV and you can then stream the content to your device via Wi-Fi.

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Anyone left in any doubts as to the value of Web video can argue no longer, as we now have a full length movie being released on DVD, all based on what started as a five minute viral YouTube hit.

Last year saw 300 released, a movie detailing the brave souls of the legendary Spartan army who fought against the Persian army until death or glory became their saviour.

Inspiration For Spoofs

When 300 came out, a huge amount of spoofs were made and put on YouTube, Yahoo Video, Metacafe and the like. Most of these were mash-ups mixing 300 with other films, and pop culture references such as Monty Python.

However, there was one which stood out against all the others, being a well made, brilliantly produced original piece detailing the Spartans who didn’t quite make the movie. Named 305, it was viewed by almost 4 million people, and became a true viral hit.

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We learnt yesterday that social music network Last.fm has started creating original video programming to drive traffic to it. These will take the form of music interviews and live concert footage.

Now, Bebo, the third largest social network behind MySpace and Facebook has announced that it too is starting to create original programming, including a reality TV show called Gap Year.

The show will follow six lucky Bebo members as they travel the globe all expenses paid.

One Billion Video Views A Month

While speaking to Beet.tv, Ziv Navoth, Vice President of Bebo also spoke about hos many video views the network drives, an astonishing one billion every month.

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Companies, both based online and off, are coming to realise the power of Web video to draw traffic in, and once it’s on the site, stay for a while exploring the content on offer.

One field which is utilising the relative ease of providing We based video to users is that of social networking sites.

Not content with providing people a place to connect and hook up, many of them are now providing content to keep people there long term.

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Blinkx is currently the largest and most advanced Internet video search engine in the world. Something that seems to be of interest to both Google and media conglomerate News Corp.

The company, which is based in Cambridge and San Francisco, was launched in 2004 by Suranga Chandratillake. It is currently listed on the London Alternative Investment Market.

Intense Speculation

There is speculation that both Google and News Corp are interested in buying the company out, which has seen its shares rise by 50% in light of the talk.

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