WildEarth (WE) is an ecosystem of LIVE wildlife channels and broadcasters. Our focus is very much on LIVE content, even though WE archive everything (you can keyword search for it in the top right hand corner of each page). WE believe that by broadcasting LIVE you can actually experience what nature is truly about, because you feel like you are there and because nothing is edited or scripted.

WildEarth.TV was founded in 2006 by Emily and Graham Wallington with the critical help of three investors. The vision was to create a LIVE wildlife channel that simultaneously broadcast on the Internet and TV.

The principle involved taking the LIVE community driven elements of a webcam and the high production values of a presenter led TV series and get them working together at Djuma Game Reserve. So construction of the crew camp, final control, receive towers and first LIVE safari vehicle began in September 2006. A great many trenches had to be dug, wires pulled, holes drilled, not to mention all the T's that had to be crossed and I's dotted. Eventually WE began broadcasting on the 27th of April 2007, which just happens to be Freedom Day in South Africa, and the anniversary of the first democratic election that took place in 1994.

The first few months were very very difficult as there were several persistant problems with almost all aspects of the system. But slowly, one by one, the team worked through them and the audience kept on growing and growing. The number of shows increased, the number of hours per day that the safari goes out has increased and the number of adverts served has increased exponentially ... 50% compound growth month on month throughout 2009!!

Many people have been involved with making WE what it is today. From investors that you never hear about, but without whom nothing would have been possible. To various crew members that have come and gone, some stayed for a few days or a month, while others are still with us after years and years ... some even go back to the early days of AfriCam. Of course without the support and friendship of Pippa and Jurie Moolman (owners of Djuma) WE would not be here now. There is the dedicated admin team made up of Karen, Aquila and Valorie who never sleep and keep an eagle eye on all the comings and goings in the far flung corners of the network, always maintaining the 'family values' that underpin the WEcommunity. Last, but not least, are all the viewers, without whom there is nothing.

10% of our viewers watch for 2.5 hours per viewing session, 50% watch for more than 30 minutes ... this is a testament to the dedication of our viewership, but also the stickiness of our content.

Along the way WE realised that we could (and should) share what we had learnt about this genre of broadcasting with others. WE also knew that they desperatley needed a way to start generating some revenue to start at least contributing to the high cost of producing and distributing this content. So the WEproducers program was born. A simple system which allows certain producers to send a single stream to the WE platform from where we insert ads and handle the global distribution and provide the producers with an embedded (and branded) player that they can put back into their websites. This not only meant that they had a zero cost of distribution, but actually made some money as well.

The WEproducer program grew throughout 2009, and 2010 promises to see a substantial step forward with many new producers, more efficient advertising placement, which leads to higher revenues per viewed stream, increased distribution and better quality channels.

In late 2009 the WEdistributor program was soft launched which allows approved websites to embed certain channels and earn a percentage of the advertising revenue. This is a very exciting program that promises to not only benefit the distributor with premium content with non of the risk, but also provide far more traffic to the various producers. The first two distributors were the African Wildlife Foundation and Justin.tv (largest LIVE audience in the world at 40 million plus unique viewers per month). Again this program promises great expansion in 2010, and appears to be the strategy of most major broadcasters across, all genres, everywhere.

The TV side of WildEarth has had numerous false starts, including deals with Telkom Media (a new pay tv operator in South Africa that never launched) and SomethingTV (an IPTV operator in the UK that slowly faded away). However, in the third quarter of 2009, WE signed an exclusive global distribution partnership with Global Media Consult (distributors for Al Jazeera, Bloomberg and many others) and expect great things in 2010.

Ultimatley WildEarth.TV is not a producer, but rather an enabler of LIVE wildlife producers. WE plan to transform the Safari Channel into a locally owned contributor to WildEarth, both TV and the Internet, as well as facilitate the creation of many new and exciting channels. So if you have a great channel or want to create one, or want to carry one on your pay tv platform, or website you should be talking to WE ... its in your nature.