When tragic shootings struck a Pittsburgh fast food restaurant, WTAE-TV's web site had news of the gunman's capture three minutes after it happened. WFLA-TV in Tampa, FL, watched its site traffic triple from an average of 30,000 page views to 93,000 when it covered a huge fire, despite the fact that no one was hurt. Six Forces of Change Web news is changing the way we produce, distribute and watch news. At least six forces are changing radio and television web pages from curiosities to serious media outlets. DSL can typically handle 10 times the throughput of dialup telephone access to the Internet.
Wide bandwidth is available from cable modems too.
Cable companies are also frantically upgrading their systems to accommodate the modems. This year, Forrester Research estimates that 5 million U.S. households will have wide bandwidth service. The estimate for 2004 is 36.4 million. This new wide web seems ready made for television and radio news because the bandwidths are theoretically sufficient to handle video. So far, however, even wide web video is puny.