The past few years have seen a wide range of interactive digital media arrive online, including streaming video, podcasting and other multimedia content, as media outlets work to make their Web sites more attractive destinations.

FOX television affiliate WSVN-TV Miami (wsvn.com) recently engaged the services of content delivery network operator Mirror Image Internet (mirror-image.com) to deliver video content to an online audience that had reached two million viewers.

Martin Hayward, marketing director for Mirror Image, says media outlets are realizing that offering the same content on their Web sites as they do on their newscasts just isn't enough for viewers anymore.

"We're seeing with hundreds of our customers that they are not just delivering object-caching, but many of our customers are moving towards the richer media content like streaming video and video-on-demand and those types of things," says Hayward.

After realizing its video content was too much for its in-house IT department to support, WSVN-TV turned to its sister station, WHDH-TV (whdh.com) Channel 7 for assistance. The Boston, Massachusetts based station recommended Mirror Image, the same content delivery network that was delivering its own rich media content.

Now, says Mirror Image, WSVN?s audience can go to the station's Web site to watch in-depth video news segments and replays of local and national sporting events, find clips of updates and breaking news, four-minute Web-exclusive news updates and supplemental content for events such as the upcoming premiere of "American Idol."

"We're not just getting our information right now from television," says Hayward. "Viewers, myself included, are using the Web as a source of information too. It's becoming very popular, not just for news, but also for entertainment."

Adding streaming video to WSVN's Web site, as well as the bandwidth-intensive "American Idol" promotion, will produce a definite strain on the site because of the increase traffic and the increased size and complexity of files to be delviered.

Mirror Image's says its global CDN lessens that strain by allowing the station to offload the traffic to Mirror Image's network, ensuring 100 percent uptime. And Mirror Image does not flush content according to Web traffic deemed high priority.

As a result, if WSVN has a crucial breaking story or a popular news segment from a previous news broadcast, that content will be available 24 hours a day.

Media companies no longer rely entirely on traditional outlets, but are further using the Internet as an avenue for reaching their target audience and generating advertising revenue.

"They only have a certain amount of time on television," says Hayward, "whereas on the Web, they [can show the footage] they can't show on television. So online rich media is not replacing [television], but it's definitely complementing it."