[opendtv] News: AOL coverage crushes TV
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 08:37:50 -0400
AOL coverage crushes TV
July 4, 2005 12:00am
Source: Toronto Star
The Live 8 concerts were an unprecedented international poverty
awareness effort, but the campaign may also have been an historic
broadcast event as well.
Covering 10 venues more or less simultaneously was next to
impossible for TV networks, meaning viewers missed many memorable
moments from the world's stages. Television seemed shockingly
old-fashioned compared with AOL's superior coverage.
With a click of the mouse, America Online visitors could jump from a
video feed of the London concert to one from Philadelphia, Berlin or
Rome.
The performances were shown in their entirety. By mid-afternoon, AOL
had set a record with 160,000 people simultaneously viewing video
streams, the most ever, according to AOL programming chief Bill
Wilson.
While AOL could be faulted for failing to supply a comprehensive
schedule ahead of time, it offered updates onscreen under an entry
called "The Buzz." People watching Kanye West in Philadelphia, for
instance, were flashed a message "Brian Wilson is performing 'Good
Vibrations' in Berlin. Or they were told Snoop Dogg was about to take
the stage in London.
It was utterly addictive, giving music fans a reason to stay glued
to their computers.
AOL's "global feed" feature offered a chance to catch up with
just-ended performances, with little interruption.
<<Toronto Star -- 07/04/05>>
<< Copyright ©2005 Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, All Rights Reserved. >>
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