Online Media Take Hold…"Who killed the radio (and the TV)?

This time, audiences and advertisers are buying into the digital video and audio evolution.

To watch most of his favorite programs, James Finn doesn’t turn on the TV. He boots up his computer.

The 25-year-old manager of a Baltimore movie theater spends as many as four hours a day on ManiaTV.com, checking out music videos, extreme sports highlights and short films streamed over the Internet.

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"I used to watch TV three or four hours a day," Finn said. "Now I’m down to about two hours of TV a week."

Five years ago, at the height of the dot-com boom, entrepreneurs and visionaries predicted that new online venues would overtake traditional media as viewers like Finn enjoyed shows and other content tailored to their tastes and schedules.

It didn’t happen.

High-speed Internet connections were rare, and few people were willing to wait hours for a 10-minute video clip to download. Plus, most people’s idea of on-demand entertainment was a drive to the local video store. The brutal tech bust seemed to close the book on the aspirations of those who envisioned the Internet transforming the way news and entertainment were produced and consumed.

But it turns out the dot-com crash may just have been the prologue. After licking their wounds, a rash of companies — including small players such as ManiaTV, Web giants such as Yahoo Inc. and traditional media titans such as Walt Disney Co. — are again investing heavily to bring more audio and video to the Internet.

"The digital age is upon us," incoming Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger said at a recent conference for investors. "It’s vital for us to migrate … to new media platforms."

By Chris Gaither, Times Staff Writer

Full Story: http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-media30jun30,1,1690131.story?coll=la-headlines-technology&ctrack=1&cset=true