Friction TV reckons it can become the home of comment on the web: its idea is that anybody equiped with little more than a web cam can post a short clip sounding off about anything from immigration to the inequity of council tax.

The idea is the brainchild of Omer Sheikh, who was surprised to discover a deserted Speakers’ Corner one afternoon last year. As a response, he determined to set up its equivalent online.

Friction was only established in January but its founders worked hard to solicit short clips from politicians — from Tommy Sheridan to Nick Griffin — and a determination not to censor any content. “If free speech is our political point, that’s it: we looked at what Nick Griffin said, and it wasn’t illegal,” says Mr Sheikh.

Once upon a time, viewers with an opinion on the news had about as much chance of getting it aired as bumping into a journalist airing a voxpop: the rise of broadband video and the desire of broadcasters of all sorts to follow the YouTube model means that people are queueing up to solicit views. ITN wants to recruit its own group of commentators: the best opinions about, say, David Beckham’s performance will be aired.

Yet, the question is whether people have the appetite to watch webcam commentary for long. Friction TV has had 250,000 visitors to its site since it launched.

But as television scrambles to reinvent itself, the independent website will find it hard to meet its goal, as articulated by Andy West, Friction’s chief marketing officer, of “becoming the home of debate on the web”.

Iain Dale, one of the founders of internet political broadcaster 18 Doughty Street, is unconvinced that a slew of vox pops is the answer to viewer engagement. 18 Doughty Street transmits about five hours a night of political talk shows and programming online, winning niche audiences of a few thousand. While it was set up by a group of Conservatives — Mr Dale is best known as a Tory blogger — the channel is trying gradually to move itself from the “Tory TV” label, and has recruited Peter Tatchell as a presenter.

However, Mr Dale believes that what those who are going to watch want is better quality rather than a simple self-produced vox pop. “We’ve struggled to get citizen journalism going,” he said. “What people seem to like about us is the feeling that they are arriving in the middle of a conversation — when we transmit an hour-long interview with Edwina Currie you can really get into an issue, at a length no conventional broadcaster could.”

That experience is important: after all, experienced broadcasters know that user-generated content used to be known as the phone-in, and needs to be carefully edited. “We’re not interested in Mike and his Mondeo saying bring back hanging,” said Matt Morris, head of Radio 5 Live, a broadcaster that receives about two thousand texts a day. 5 Live tries to use feedback for item or news ideas and the BBC’s resources allow it to appoint an audience editor to keep a database of people who can be used to offer a relevant opinion.

Yet not everybody wants to be mediated by the prism of the BBC, or any other broadcaster: Friction TV can find a niche by permitting overtly political broadcasting that is not permitted on television. But what people want to watch is more likely to be better produced.

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