WASHINGTON, D.C. — CNN.com leads the news business in the live streaming of news events. From its home page, visitors are offered the choice of four different live streams. In 2008, the network provided 83 million individual streams,a CNN.com spokesperson told Beet.TV
CNN.com general manager K.C. Estenson told me in in this interview conducted on Monday in the Washington, in the Google offices, that that the Inauguration of Barack Obama will likely be the “most watched events in Internet history.”
Seeking to monetize the huge traffic spike, CNN will insert 30 and 60 second commercials throughout the live streams of the Inauguration coverage, he says. Previous ads on CNN.com Live have been limited to 30 second pre-rolls shown before the start of a stream.
Live streaming has been one most significant trends in online video and journalism and it will surely grow this year.. Could be that that the CNN is paving the way for a sustainable monetization approach. We will be watching.
— Andy Plesser, Executive Producer