1.5 Million People Watch Live Video Coverage From Rightster and ITN Productions of the Murdoch Phone Hacking Parliamentary Hearing
LONDON, July 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --
An audience of over 1.5 million people watched yesterday's live video coverage of the UK Parliamentary hearing into the on-going News International phone hacking scandal, via the live stream provided by Rightster in partnership with ITN Productions. Rightster's video solutions were used by ITN Productions to distribute a live stream of the proceedings to five major publisher sites, namely the Guardian, the Mail Online, MSN, itn.co.uk and Facebook (via ITN's page).
The headline statistics for the live stream were:
- 1.53 million total unique stream starts across publisher sites (MailOnline, the Guardian, MSN, ITN's Facebook Page, itn.co.uk), indicating the total number of people who watched the proceedings
- A surge in views around the incident when a protester attacked Rupert Murdoch; views reached a peak when the attack took place with concurrent streams spiking by 25% in just 30 secs, indicating the power of social media like Facebook & Twitter to spread news instantaneously
Charlie Muirhead, CEO of Rightster, said: "These figures indicate not just the compelling nature of the phone hacking saga, but also the rising importance of online media and live video streaming as a way for mass audiences to engage in news events globally. Rightster is committed to helping content owners and publishers bring such significant live events to a worldwide audience, in the most efficient and innovative way possible."
Mark Browning, Managing Director of ITN Productions, said: "Following our success with the Royal Wedding, ITN Productions has further consolidated its position at the forefront of news event live streaming. With our partners including the biggest commercial news sites in the UK, we will be looking to deliver more events in the coming months."
ABOUT RIGHTSTER
Rightster is a B2B system for media rights management, providing technology solutions and expert advice which simplify the business of online video. The Rightster system connects content owners, publishers and advertisers, enabling them to build audience, accelerate revenues, reduce costs and simplify operations. Through its Advanced Video Streaming (AVS) solutions, Rightster focuses on enabling business transactions with easy to use, powerful software which puts its customers in control of their video content. Rightster believes in a transparent partnership model, using free tools and performance based fees rather than costly and complicated up-front licenses. Rightster uses a unique 'social web' model which lets content companies easily connect and build up their own private networks via the Rightster system, facilitating content distribution, rights transactions, monetisation and media asset management. Founded in Sept 2010, Rightster is growing rapidly and is already used by a wide range of clients such as ITN (the UK's largest commercial news producer), the British Fashion Council (owner of London Fashion Week and other fashion events), and thousands of publisher sites globally.
ABOUT ITN PRODUCTIONS
ITN Productions creates multi-platform content for major global brands, covering genres such as factual, entertainment, news and corporate production. Clients that commission award-winning programmes from ITN Productions include major UK and international broadcasters such as ITV, the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, History and Discovery, with television commissions including Climbing Great Buildings on BBC2 and Mud Men on History. Entertainment content made by ITN Productions includes FYI Daily on ITV2, The Breakfast Fix on 4Music, The Movie Show on ITV2, and The Showbiz 411 on YouTube and Twitter, with international programmes including The Cool Edition on China's biggest English language channel. ITN Productions also creates news content for a wide range of clients such as Yahoo!, MSN, Virgin Media, Telegraph Media Group, The Independent, Metro, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Star, and the Illiffe and MNA publishing groups. ITN News is the most viewed news channel on YouTube. Corporate clients also work with ITN Productions to create content, including Hodder Education, Direct.gov and NHS Choices.
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