On Sunday, U2 played a gig at the Pasadena Rose Bowl in California as part of their current world tour. It streamed live on YouTube and managed to rack up 10 million viewers. Which is a huge success for both Google and the Akamai content delivery network which handled the event.
Live Success
YouTube is no stranger to live streaming, having experimented with the method of broadcasting a few times since being acquired by Google. However, Sunday night’s U2 concert was a hit like the site has never experienced before.
When competing with the bread and butter of YouTube – the viral videos generated by users – the U2 concert was a relative failure, but gaining such a large audience for an event such as this is nothing short of spectacular.
Handling Difficulties
The challenges facing YouTube and its partners were huge for this event, with negotiating the rights from all parties and the actual technical difficulties needed to be overcome needing to be managed inordinately well.
Thankfully, YouTube pulled it off, thanks in no small part to Akamai, the content delivery network which handled at least some of the load this type of high-profile event would have generated.
Viewing Figures
Initial reports suggested the viewing figures were under a million. This was then upped to 2.5 million. But Variety is reporting that the U2 concert on YouTube managed to attract 10 million viewers.
As MediaMemo points out, these figures mean the concert wouldn’t make the Top 20 highest-rated TV shows in the United States, with The Mentalist sneaking in with 11.8 million viewers. And the U2 gig was available in 16 countries.
But I still count it as a huge achievement.
Conclusions
Foo Fighters have now announced they will be playing a set from their studio which will be streamed live on Facebook. And I’m guessing this trend will continue, especially once groups and record labels realize how much potential for publicity there is.
With Vevo launching soon, and Muzu.tv and MySpace Music Videos already with us, there are no shortage of places for live streaming concerts to take place. Whether they become a regular occurrence or not all depends on everyone involved getting enough out of it to persuade them to do it again.
The full concert is now available to watch at YouTube.com/U2.
