MediaWatch is designed to help clear the fog surrounding multimedia, and give you the opportunity to plug in to this exciting world. There are other players out there which handle different formats. Each service makes a choice about which player works best for them. Locally, Rochester's radio and television stations have been behind many other cities our size in establishing multimedia services for users. Only a handful of local stations are presently streaming their programming across the net, sometimes because their corporate parent has a policy prohibiting streaming, or because it just hasn't been a priority.
Most stations streaming their programming on the net do so for public relations purposes.
The audiences for these services are often small, but are convenient for homesick visitors with web connections, bored office workers looking to stay in touch, and those armchair travelers interested in hearing what is happening in a community. Streamed stations are also useful if you get marginal reception on your radio, or if seeking a nationally syndicated program that is not carried on a local station. Television stations face a myriad of copyright issues, so it is very uncommon to find a television station transmitting their full program schedule across the net. A barrage of lawsuits put an end to the service just weeks after launch. Instead, most television stations that offer programming online limit it to newscasts and newsclips, and occasional locally-produced programs.