When tvradio.com launched on Jan. 24 at NATPE, it represented the culmination of two years of hard work. The brainchild of Chris Meraw, tvradio set out to provide a wealth of content specifically tailored to its Internet network of information, lifestyle and entertainment programming.

Meraw, now the chairman and ceo of the company (officially called Virtual Broadcast Corporation) brought Sidney M. Cohen on board in the middle of 1999. Cohen, a longtime television producer, took on the role of president and executive producer for the company.

‘Ten percent of our programming comes from outside sources [the open marketplace – conventions, etc.], but 90% is [produced] ourselves [specifically for the Internet]. We have a staff of producers and we subcontract the camera people and so on. And fairly soon, we’re going to have our own studio and our own staff of techies as well,’ Cohen explains.

tvradio’s staff has jumped from two to 21 in the short time it has been operational. This does not include its staff of 10 freelancers.

tvradio started with 12 networks in January and the number is expanding rapidly. ‘We’ve got 19 networks and we’ll probably get to 40 in the next year,’ Cohen says.

The networks vary from a teen network (where they are trying to build Internet celebrities) through a Doctor’s Station (that shows surgery) all the way to Naturist tv, which features the world’s first nude talk show. Each network includes a growing list of shows and each show contains a growing list of episodes.

‘Some of them have hundreds of shows,’ Cohen says, ‘We’ve got over 20 hours of original content in here.’

Despite its ever-expanding lineup of content, tvradio is more than a new-style content producer/distributor. It also takes advantage of the Internet’s capabilities to sell. Fulfillment partners allow the company to turn the audience into customers for its products.

Cohen explains the company’s motto: ‘We’re a tv network, we’re program producers and we’re an important store. And just like any store we have to stand behind our products and defend our audience.’

In fact, the tvradio fulfillment houses are not paid until the customer has received their order and is satisfied with it.

The company also brings in revenue through booming ad sales to ‘global consumer brand companies. Before, they didn’t even know what the Web was and now we’re breaking into them at very high levels,’ Cohen says.

With newly created corporate Internet advertising budgets and the company’s innovative ad delivery system (tv commercials that play upon the click of a banner), corporate sponsors are rolling in. In fact, Cohen describes their responses as ‘unanimously favorable.’

With viewers in place in 90 countries and translations into numerous languages in the works, tvradio is working fast. A new and powerful search engine and a full streaming capacity (allowing thousands of simultaneous viewers) will be rolling out in a couple of weeks.

Cohen concludes: ‘An Internet network is an Internet network and you’re known by the content you have. And I’ll stand by our content to the end. It’s great stuff.’