Audi has started its own internet TV channel. With immediate effect, Audi tv is on the air in English and German at www.audi.com/tv and www.audi.de/tv. But the carmaker from Ingolstadt, Germany, goes far beyond what other brand channels have broadcast to date. „Audi tv provides viewers with exciting, original programming that offers new levels of access to the multi-faceted world of the brand with the four rings,“ commented Ralph Weyler, AUDI AG Board Member for Marketing and Sales.
Viewers are offered a wide range of exciting and informative reports from the fields of culture, sport, lifestyle and technology. Audi has produced its own magazine programmes in HDTV quality and in 16:9 format. The hosts present these shows 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Besides regular broadcasting times for the individual programmes on the "Live" channel, viewers can also call up reports about specific issues at will on four "on demand" channels. "We regard Audi tv as an innovative communications channel that operates like a TV channel but which also reflects the merging of traditional TV broadcasting with the internet," explains Hans-Christian Schwingen, Head of Marketing Communication at Audi. "This mix of unconventionally-produced brand, technology and lifestyle topics makes our schedule very attractive. The range of topics we cover is broad enough to ensure that every viewer will find something to enjoy in the world of Audi," explains Liane Scheinert, Head of Audi tv. Here are just a few examples of Audi tv programming: a stroll around the Bode Museum in Berlin, impressions from the catwalk during a fashion show by the star designer Michael Michalsky, kite surfing in Namibia, a flying visit to a perfumer in Grasse or the Audi “nose team” in Ingolstadt, portraits of an Audi DTM racing car driver, or the duel between an airboat and an Audi S4 Cabriolet in Florida's Everglades.
The channel is managed by a small team at Audi in Ingolstadt, with the support of editors from different divisions of the company, for example Marketing, Communications, International Sales, Design and Technical Development. The programmes are created by Ziggy Film Mediahouse in Munich. They are responsible for programme compilation, production management, project management, art direction and programming. Technical operation of the station is the responsibility of GRID TV AG in Munich.
Audi tv also benefits from the brand’s existing TV experience. In 2005, Audi successfully launched the "Audi Channel", a digital TV channel broadcast to some 7.6 million households in the United Kingdom