The Mentalist

UTube: 10 Million Streams for Bono and Co.’s Live Show

Peter Kafka in Media on October 29, 2009 at 4:22 am PT

What happens when one of the biggest bands in the world Webcasts a live concert on the world’s biggest video site? You get a lot of video streams. Close to 10 million, says YouTube, adding that Sunday’s live Webcast of U2′s Rose Bowl concert was the single largest event it has streamed so far.

Web TV You’ll Need to Pay to See: Time Warner, Comcast Roll Out “Authentication.” Who Else Is In?

Peter Kafka in Media on June 24, 2009 at 3:00 am PT

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts will announce this morning that their two companies are linking up for a trial of an “authentication” effort. That means a handful of cable subscribers will get online access to Time Warner TV shows that have been previously kept off the Web. The idea is to protect cable subscription revenues by giving pay TV subscribers–but only subscribers–Web access to all the shows they get on TV. It’s a simple idea, but making it a reality will be very, very complicated.