Live Earth Internet streaming sets record

EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey (Reuters) - The Live Earth global pop concerts on Saturday broke a record for an online entertainment show by generating more than 9 million Internet streams, Microsoft Corp. Web portal MSN said.

As the last two of the nine Live Earth concerts got underway, MSN product manager Karin Muskopf said the number of streams had surpassed the previous record held by 2005's

Live 8 global concerts to fight poverty.
"We have exceeded any other online entertainment event," Muskopf said. "It's really exciting to see the enthusiasm for the concert."

An Internet stream is when a person watches on a computer. People can stream an event more than once -- by switching it on and off -- so 9 million streams does not necessarily mean 9 million people watching, MSN said.

Live 8 was the first major multi-venue event successfully streamed live with Time Warner Inc.'s AOL portal on the Web. AOL said 5 million people had logged on to the event on the day of those shows, but it did not say how many Internet streams of the event there had been.

MSN said it would not be able to immediately determine the number of people who logged on to Live Earth.

Control Room, producer of Live Earth and Live 8, said it found that the on-demand streams in the days after the Live 8 had the most impact, especially after clips were passed around by e-mail.

Live 8 was streamed by users more than 100 million times in the six weeks following the shows.

Live Earth is predicted to be three times bigger with organizers expecting more than 80 percent of the viewership will be on-demand in the days after the event