Live Stream Concerts Online: Yahoo, Live Nation Launch 'Screen Live' Program to Broadcast Performances Daily
Free concerts every day for a year, broadcasted anywhere in the world. This is the ambitious aim of a partnership between concert ticket giant Live Nation Entertainment and Yahoo's new site Screen. Each day for an entire year, music groups and artists will perform and have their concert streamed live online.
Screen Live kicked off Tuesday with a broadcast of the Dave Matthew's Band performing from Jacksonville, Florida. The Fray, Michael Franti & Spearhead, KISS and Common are among the acts performing in the first week alone of the campaign. Usher, Justin Timberlake and John Legend have also signed on for a performance spot.
"There hasn't been one location where fans can go to see a diverse group of artists with really high-quality production," senior executive at Live Nation, Russell Wallach, said. "That's where we saw our opportunity with Yahoo."
If viewers respond well to the free live content, Yahoo hopes it will help to establish Screen as a legitimate competitor to Google's Youtube. The partnership would also help Live Nation gain traction among viewers for more online concerts, which have yet to take off with consumers. The appeal for artists, according to Wallach, is the chance for huge promotion and interaction with fans, especially ones that tours would not reach.
Music streaming is not something unfamiliar; sites like Pandora and Spotify are wildly popular for streaming music from popular and obscure artists. And recently music festivals such as Coachella and Bonnaroo who broadcast their lineups live have attracted online audiences of several million viewers. However, even large-name artists have had difficulties gaining online crowds for individual streaming concerts.
"If you think you can get millions of people to watch online just because you're a big-name artist, you're probably going to be disappointed," Brad Hunstable, the chief executive of Ustream, said.
Skeptics are concerned that the experience of watching online shows won't compare with seeing it in person.
I could never imagine myself sitting at home and watching a concert on a laptop," said Evan Lowenstein of StageIt and a former performer with the duo Evan and Jaron. "What that does from a psychological perspective is make me feel like I want to be there."
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