Livestream Goes Mainstream With AP Deal To Stream Video From The Oscars Red Carpet

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Erick Schonfeld is the Editor in Chief of TechCrunch. He oversees the editorial content of the site, helps to program the Disrupt conferences and CrunchUps, produces TCTV shows, and writes daily for the blog. He is also the father of three adorable children. He joined TechCrunch as Co-Editor in 2007, and helped take it from a popular... → Learn More

Live video streaming on the Web is finally going mainstream. Livestream, the NYC-based live video streaming startup, just landed a one-year partnership with the Associated Press to power all of the AP’s live video streams on the Web. The first event to be streamed live under the new deal will be video from the red carpet at the Oscars this Sunday.

The video will be hosted by Livestream at APLive, where viewers can log in to chat with their Twitter or Facebook IDs. It will also be available on Facebook, where viewers will have to become a fan of APLive in order to watch. (APLive only has 1,271 fans right now).

The Oscars will be the first of many live video events Livestream will power for the AP. Under the deal, Livestream and the AP split revenues associated with the APLive video. Revenues can come from licensing (AP-affiliated publishers can embed the video on their news sites) or advertising (partners can embed the video for free with the APLive branding, which comes with pre-roll plus overlay ads sold by the AP and Livestream jointly). Consumers and fans can embed the APLIve player for free on their blogs or Facebook pages as long as less than 500 people watch concurrently from any one page.

Livestream is seeing significant growth in live video viewership overall. In February, it streamed 1.1 billion unique viewer minutes, compared to 650 million last August (or nearly double in six months). CEO Max Hoat says Livestream is showing videos to 17.5 million people a month across its embedded player network, with 3 million of those on its own Website. Other partners include ESPN, NPR, Fox, Scripps, and National Geographic. Its biggest competitor, Ustream, is also growing rapidly and just closed a massive funding round.

Will this be the year live video on the Web goes legit? Livestream recently issued a public challenge to its competitors to do more to fight piracy on their networks. It is clearly gunning for mainstream, and media company, acceptance.

Company: Livestream
Website: livestream.com
Launch Date: January 5, 2007
Funding: $12.7M

The original Livestream is the market leader for real time event coverage. With simple to use technology, our service allows anyone to broadcast live to the web, as well as being the top destination for live content from around the world. Our content partners include Facebook, The New York Times, ABC News, CBS News, Associated Press, HBO, AT&T, PepsiCo, Electronic Arts, Adidas, The Academy Awards, Warner Bros. Records, Paramount Pictures. Livestream operates with over 120 full-time staff members in...

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Company: Ustream
Website: ustream.tv
Launch Date: November 6, 2006
Funding: $104M

Ustream has created a network of diverse channels providing a platform for lifecasting and live video streaming of events online. Its platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size. Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for the Web and mobile devices. The interactive functionality within Ustream enables real-time engagement with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and AIM.

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Company: Justin.TV
Website: justin.tv
Launch Date: January 10, 2006

Founded in October 2006, Justin.tv is the largest online community for people to broadcast, watch and interact around live video. Using only a laptop, you can share your event, class, party or thoughts, live, to anyone in over 250 countries while they chat in real-time with you and with other viewers. With more than 41 million unique visitors per month and 428,000 channels broadcasting live video, Justin.tv is the leading live video site on the Web, enabling users to...

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