Companies collaborate to deliver ultimate viewing experiences to fans
around the world
May 31, 2011 (Business Wire) -- AEG Digital Media, provider of complete webcast management and digital media services, announced today that it teamed with Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading provider of cloud optimization services, to deliver almost 170 million streams and more than 2,400 terabytes across the Akamai HD Network in April, the largest month ever for events enabled across the two companies' platforms. The two companies collaborated to broadcast the most watched online events in April, which included the Royal Wedding and the Coachella Music and Arts Festival.
According to Nielsen, there were 14.7 billion online viewing sessions duringApril 2011 alone. As fans continued to turn to the Internet to access their favorite live events and online viewership grows, AEG Digital Media and Akamai have shown that they can bring consumers the ultimate interactive viewing experience.
AEG Digital Media and Akamai have provided their knowledge and expertise to bring hundreds of live events to online viewers spanning the international sports, music and entertainment industries, and in April delivered the following:
· The GRAMMY Live™ webcast brought 3.8 million fans to the red carpet, letting them peek behind the scenes and check out after-party celebrations. And, the Hawk, AEG Digital Media's social media management tool, aggregated and reviewed more than 30,000 GRAMMY-generated tweets.
· Coachella's webcast gave 4 million fans across the world access to a wide variety of live music acts.
· William and Kate's live-streamed nuptials drew 72 million viewers, according to Mashable.com, and was tracked as the sixth largest event on the Akamai Net Usage Index for News.
"More media companies are taking advantage of the fantastic opportunity to engage viewers and add value to programming through digital broadcasts of live events," said Suzanne Johnson, Director of Marketing at Akamai. "We have seen the numbers grow exponentially over the last year and expect that to continue as new devices and platforms emerge. The scale and power of the Akamai HD Network is behind many of these popular events to optimize the highest quality viewing experience on a global basis. Pulling events of this magnitude off is no small feat, so it's critical that companies have strong technology partners like AEG Digital Media, who can assist on the production and management of these events.