As with radio, two different things go by the same name here. “Web TV software” sometimes means the broadcast infrastructure that converts video into different resolutions and delivers it, and sometimes the television organisation’s website. This guide is about the second: a video-first news site system carrying the live stream, the programme archive and news content together.
The distinction has to be made at the outset because a web TV organisation generally needs both and they are bought separately. The infrastructure keeps the video flowing; the site is where you find viewers, archive your programmes and publish news.
A video-first site differs from a text-first site
On a news site, video is an additional element inside a story. On web TV the video is the main content and text accompanies it. That reversal asks different things of the software.
| Subject | Text-first site | Video-first site |
|---|---|---|
| Main content type | The news text | The video episode |
| Front page | Headline titles | A grid of video thumbnails |
| Archive unit | The news item | Programme and episode |
| Measurement | Reads | Views and completion rate |
| Storage burden | Images | Video files — many times larger |
| Structured data | NewsArticle | VideoObject |
The last two rows directly affect budget and visibility. Video storage is far above image storage, and if a separate structured data markup is not used for video, the content you produce will not appear as video in search results.
What a web TV site needs
The live stream
The live page is the site’s most visited address and its most fragile. The minimum expected behaviours:
- Adaptive quality: resolution changing automatically with the viewer’s connection speed
- Full screen on mobile and audio in the background
- Automatic reconnection when the connection drops
- A meaningful screen when nothing is live: the next programme and a countdown
- A news ticker or live commentary running below during the broadcast
- Low latency — particularly in live debates and match coverage
The programme and episode archive
Web TV’s long-term value is in the archive. The live stream is momentary; the archive is watched for years. The structure should have two layers: the programme (a permanent page, description, presenter, broadcast day) and the episode (date, duration, thumbnail, guests, summary).
Every episode should have a permanent address and a text summary. Sites that publish only video never appear when the subject discussed is searched for; a short summary prevents that loss.
The player and accessibility
- Subtitle support — for accessibility and for silent viewing
- Chapter markers: jumping to topic headings in long broadcasts
- A playback speed option
- Keyboard operability
- Starting from a given second when shared
- The thumbnail being selectable by hand
The news side
Most web TV organisations also produce written news; and even where they do not, text summaries of programmes are published on the site. That content makes your site an online news site under Law No. 5187 and gives rise to the masthead, date stamp and archive obligations.
Video SEO: the most missed area
Making video content visible in search requires a different technique from text content. A search engine cannot watch the video; you tell it what the video is.
- VideoObject markup. The title, description, thumbnail, duration and upload date declared in machine-readable form.
- A video sitemap. Pages containing video listed separately.
- Thumbnail quality. It directly determines the click rate in search results.
- A text summary. Real text on the page alongside the video.
- A subtitle file. Turning spoken content into text increases searchability.
- Page speed. Pages with embedded video are heavy; the player should be lazy-loaded.
The legislation: two separate regimes for broadcast and site
Television broadcasting is subject to Law No. 6112; the news content you publish on the site to Law No. 5187. The two overlap, and the retention periods differ.
| Obligation | Basis | Period / scope |
|---|---|---|
| Retention of the broadcast recording | Law 6112 Art. 25(1) | One year |
| Providing a copy on RTÜK’s request | Law 6112 Art. 25(2) | Ten days from notification |
| Retaining a broadcast under investigation | Law 6112 Art. 25(3) | Until proceedings conclude |
| The broadcasting service principles | Law 6112 Art. 8 | In every broadcast |
| Retention of internet content | Law 5187 Art. 10 | Two years |
| Masthead and date stamp | Law 5187 Art. 4(3)–(4) | Continuously |
The internet broadcasting licence
Article 29/A, added to Law No. 6112 by Law No. 7103 of 21/3/2018, regulates broadcasting over the internet. Organisations holding a temporary broadcasting right and/or a broadcasting licence from the Supreme Council may also offer their broadcasts over the internet. Those wishing to offer radio, television and on-demand broadcasting services solely over the internet must obtain a broadcasting licence from the Supreme Council; platform operators wishing to transmit such broadcasts over the internet also obtain a transmission authorisation.
You can run the pre-broadcast principles check with the RTÜK broadcasting principles checklist and see the sanction groups in the RTÜK fine guide.
Storage and distribution: the biggest cost item
In web TV what determines the budget is not the software but the video itself. An organisation producing two hours of programming a day accumulates a serious archive in a year, and that archive must be both stored and served to viewers.
- Transcoding. Serving a single high-resolution file directly loses mobile viewers; derivatives at different qualities must be produced.
- A delivery network. If video is served from your own web server, bandwidth runs out on the first big broadcast.
- Tiered storage. Frequently watched new episodes on fast storage, the older archive on cheaper storage.
- A retention policy. The broadcast recording that must be kept under the legislation and the archive offered to viewers are not the same thing; plan them separately.
Measurement: views alone are not enough
In video publishing the most misleading indicator is the raw view count. If ten thousand people click on an episode and leave after thirty seconds, that episode was not successful. The indicators to watch:
| Indicator | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Completion rate | Whether the content was actually watched |
| Average watch time | Which length works |
| Drop-off point | Where in the programme viewers were lost |
| Live concurrent viewers | Real interest at the moment of broadcast |
| Archive views | The long life of the content |
| Traffic source | The split between search, social and direct |
The drop-off point is particularly valuable: seeing at which minute of the programme viewers are lost lets you make format decisions from data.
The counterpart on the KEYDAL side
For web TV organisations the core of the site is again the news software; the video side sits on top. In the panel the Media Library keeps files in folders, with alt text and copyright information added to each. The content delivery network set up automatically for every site serves media addresses from edge servers; the bandwidth problem of large files is solved at that layer.
The Omni module distributes a single piece of content to push, X, Instagram and WhatsApp — for putting out a new episode announcement from one place. The Podcast module manages the audio side; both are at the Infinity plan tier. On the news side the masthead sits under Corporate → Masthead as a structured record and the date stamp is applied at system level.
Summary
When looking for web TV software, first be clear which layer you mean: the infrastructure carrying the video stream, or the site that meets the viewer? On the site side what you want is a video-first news system — a live page, a programme and episode archive, a player with subtitles, and separate structured data for video.
On the legislative side carry two regimes together: Law 6112 for the broadcast (one-year recording, the principles, an internet broadcasting licence where needed) and Law 5187 for the news on the site (masthead, date stamp, two-year archive). The general software selection framework is in the news software guide and the radio counterpart in the radio software guide.