14 DAY TRIAL // The music event of the year, which brought on stage the biggest bands of the world, has been broadcasted by all major TV networks in the world. But whereas the majority has only offered fragments which were filmed in several locations where the concert took place, those who preferred America Online had much more to win.
AOL has confirmed the status of modern information broadcast channel, its performances being clearly superior to those of renowned TV networks that have a lot of experience in this field. We could say that is the first time when viewers become Internet surfers.
AOL's programs had a clearly superior structure, and this gave them an edge over the other broadcasted shows. Considering that this concert took place in 10 different locations simultaneously, it would have been impossible for a TV network to broadcast from all stages.
Moreover, the importance of the concert and audience's interest could not have been ignored by the advertisers. In this way, MTV's broadcasts were interrupted by an exaggerated number of commercials, practically, the number of actual performances was equal to the number of commercials.
On the other hand, Internet surfers who visited AOL were free to choose from several sources: London, Philadelphia, Berlin or Rome, all of them being fully broadcasted.
AOL officials said that over 165,000 Internet surfers visited the portal and simultaneously watched the video broadcasts, and overall, over 5 million users have accessed America Online sources during the day. AOL had one major flaw in all this: the absence of a schedule that announced the artists' performances. The problem was fixed in a rather unprofessional manner, by displaying a real-time message that announced when a performance was to begin.
Still, broadband video-streaming is just at the beginning and there are many things that can be improved, the final result being a superior transmitting and receiving capability of the TV signal. While TV networks haven't given up on the classic elements: interviews, polls etc., AOL had a much more stage focused program. In this way, portal users were able to view all major events, unlike MTV's users who had to deal with all the station's mistakes.