Thomas Beutelschmidt; Wolf Siegert:
Digital Communication or Tele-Vision?
tv strategies for the future
transmediale '99, catalogue, Katalog, Berlin 1999, 31/32.

Of major interest in this context are the instructive experiments carried out by

- the ARD, whose joint "75 Years of Radio" project demonstrates the different opportunities and effects involved in the use of the Internet in a direct comparison with the ARD online channel via TV satellite;
-the BBC and John Wyver (Illumination) in the form of two experimental programmes: "The Mirror", an Internet game with avatars in a VR world, and "Out of the World", a follow
-up project in co-operation with ZKM, GMD and British Telecom; -NBC in the shape of its NBC GIGA projet launched in December 1998 and the subsequent experience it has gained,
-ProSieben, which offers its viewers no just virtual personnel from its SZM studios but also Internet subscriptions such a "e:max " with lifestyle packages, -RTL, whose Bärbel Schäfer chats in he TV talk show with her "Chat Man" an "Lara Croft" via the Internet,
-the ZDF whose activities range from Intercast programmes via live chats in the "Terranet Café" on 3sat to a "Webface" as a virtual presenter,
-independent generators of new ideas, such as Van Gogh Television, which is now developing a multimedia information system as a "service area base " in the wake of the experience it has gained with its pioneer project, "Piazza Virtuale";
- Loewe New Media, whose sophisticated advertising spots herald the advent of a networked television world.

What unites these projects despite all the differences between them is the technological dovetailing and overlapping of two media systems, primarily with a view to generating productive synergies and innovative broadcasting formats. While these productions incorporate elements from both systems, they nevertheless have their own distinct aesthetic and visual dimensions and enable use to be made of different materials, designs and structures.