Last night while a packed stadium of hip-hop fans in East Rutherford New Jersey attended one of the biggest concerts of the year, "The HOT 97 Summer Jam," tens of thousands tuned in to watch the concert on U-Stream. Fans could log on to the station website or Facebook Page to catch the stream and they sure did. While rapper Wiz Kalifa was onstage early on in the show there were 16,500 people logged on to watch. By 8PM over 35,000 were taking the concert in on their computer. When Chris Brown started singing the number of viewers vaulted over 40,000.
It was clear Emmis and the New York team know what they are doing with digital. The stream was crystal clear and there was content being provided between artists such as live backstage interviews. The station made the stream easy to find and one click to enter. Listeners stayed engaged during the stream by being able to jump on Twitter and discuss the show with each other using special hashtags. And, there was so many people using the service to discuss the event it was hard to keep up with the conversation as the comments flew by so fast. Emmis also set up a giant graphic of a Blackberry phone on the station's website so listeners with a Blackberry could also comment via twitter. A paid sponsorship for sure.
The next great Internet invention for radio will be called the "streaming dump switch" or "7-second delay for streams." The only downside to streaming a live event like this one was the excessive use of the F-bomb.
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