Internet television allows its users to choose the program or the TV show they want to watch from an archive of programs or from a channel directory. The 2 forms of viewing Internet television are streaming the content directly to a media player or simply downloading the program/show onto the users computer. With the "TV on Demand" market growing, these on demand websites or applications are a must have for major television broadcasters. eg the iplayer of BB  realizes users which stream more than One Million videos per week, with one of the BBC's headline shows "The learner" taking over 3 - 5% of the UK's internet hits referable  to individuals  seeing the 1st sequence on iplayer.

Each Day the use of On Demand  television peaks at around 10am, Most providers of the service provide several different formats and quality controls so that the service can be viewed on many different devices. Some services now offer a HD service alongside their SD, streaming is the same but offers the quality of HD to the device being used, as long as it is using a HD screen. During Peak times the BBC's iPlayer sends out 12GB (Gigabytes) worth of information a second, around the same as sending out 20 DVDs content per secondOver the course of a month the iPlayer sends out 7 Petabytes of information which is the same as 11 Million Dvd's content. This wide use of on demand services is causing Internet Service Providers a great deal of issues

.Market competitors

Many providers of internet television services exist including conventional television stations that have taken advantage of the internet as way to continue showing programmes after they have been broadcast often advertised as "On Demand" and "Catch Up" services

Approach/usability

Accessing online TV is a comparatively simple process. Using an ISP, something which is common in many homes in the developed world, the user simply enters their chosen website url. For example, bbc.com/iplayer  Control

Controlling content on the internet presents a challenge for most providers to try and ensure that a user is allowed to view content such as programmes with age certificates providers use Techniques specified parental controls that admits limitations to be aimed on the use and approach of documented materialArchives

An archive is a collection of information and media much like a library or interactive storage facility. It is a necessity for an on demand media service to maintain archives so that users can watch programmes that have already been aired on standard broadcast television. However these archives can vary from a few weeks to months to years, depending on the curator and what programme it is.

Broadcasting rights

Broadcasting rights change from country to country and even within provinces of countries. These rights govern the distribution of copyrighted content and media and allow the sole distribution of that content at any one time.

An example of programmes only being aired in certain countries is BBC iPlayer. Users can only stream content from iPlayer from Britain because the BBC only allows free use of their product for users within Britain because those users pay a TV license to fund part of the BBC

Profits and costs

With the exception of Internet connectivity costs many online television channels or sites are free. These sites maintain this free TV policy through the use of advertising, short commercials and banner adverts may show up before a video is played. An example of this is on the abc.com catch up website; in place of the advert breaks on normal television a short 30 second advert is played.

Technologies used for Internet television

The Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) consortium of industry companies (such as SES Astra,humax, Philips, and ANT Software)is currently promoting and establishing an open European standard (called HbbTV) for hybrid set-top boxes for the reception of broadcast and broadband digital TV and multimedia applications with a single user interface