David Brown, vice president of brand development at VMIX told The Daily Reel that this new channel marks the first time that a content provider is using the video site not just to promote its own content, but to also gather user-generated content for television.

"To date, online interactivity with mainstream content has been demonstrated through commenting on sites or texting to vote. But now we begin to see that viewers want to interact in more concrete ways by submitting video content."

The partnership between the two companies is promotional, with no cash being exchanged in the deal. In addition to VMIX, highlights of The Fizz are also posted on YouTube, Stickam, and The 101’s MySpace page.

"User-generated content and audience participation are all the rage right now, " Garrett Darland, senior producer of The Fizz said. "Our producers do all the filtering of content and look for those submission gems that wind up bubbling up into the fizz. The Fizz’s audience is quite varied, we thought it would speak loudest to a younger demographic but it has proven to be incorrect as the age range and demographics are far more varied then we first imagined. Many of our viewers are unfamiliar with Video-Blogging and internet celebrities so we offer them a glimpse into a world that they may not be familiar with. "

The show pays its user-correspondents receive $250 for an appearance on an episode of The Fizz. If an appearance is short, less than 10 seconds, they receive $100.

In a Wednesday article, Red Herring's Alexandra Berzon noted that while many media outlets like CurrentTV and CNN have already been experimenting with gathering user-generated content online for use on traditional television, the VMIX deal is strange in that the DirecTV is trying to establish itself inside a video community that already exists instead of leveraging its existing audience.