Home  Blog  Viewers Tuned into Web to Watch Curiosi... 

Viewers Tuned into Web to Watch Curiosity Mars Landing

August 15, 2012
By Greg Franzese

How did you watch Curiosity's Mars landing? 

If you're like the majority of viewers, you probably tuned in via Ustream. The live-streaming platform NASA utilized for the momentous occasion brought in more than 3.2 million viewers, according to the video site.
 
“More people tuned in to watch the NASA Mars landing coverage on Ustream than many of the top cable news networks during Sunday primetime,” Ustream spokesman Tony Riggins told Mashable by email.
 
At its peak, there were 500,000 concurrent viewers across all streams, beating CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and HLN during primetime. One cable station touted higher ratings: Fox with 803,000 viewers. While the online showing is still a fraction of what NBC garnered for its tape-delayed Olympics coverage, the figures are impressive, and speak to a shift in attitude about content and its distribution. Slate reports:
Regardless, the numbers suggest that a growing number of Americans would rather watch history being made—even if the production value is low and you have to watch it on a computer—than watch a bunch of well-dressed people in makeup and hair gel shouting at one another.
Riggins added: "This speaks to how much more sophisticated social media tools are getting on the web, even from just a year ago, and how consumers are adapting technologies to get news now from sources like Ustream."
 
Viewers were also interacting with the platform's social stream, culling in total more than 102,000 comments.
Posted in Online Video News
Tags online video, live streaming
Previous Entry Next Entry

Related Posts

Weekly Rewind: The Super Bowl Effect
Weekly Rewind: Viacom and DirecTV Reunite (And It Feels so Good)
25% of U.S. Viewers Will Watch the London Olympics Online

Leave a Comment

Sign up for VideoMind Weekly Updates

Latest Tweets

© 2013 Ooyala, Inc. • Website Privacy Policy • Terms of Service • All Rights Reserved