The revolutions in Tunesia and Egypt and the civil war in Libya as well as the earth quake and tsunami leading to a nuclear catastrophe in Japan have lead to a sharp increase of users viewing TV on-line. I have just come across a blog post by web TV provider Livestation that says the number of users has risen by 1047 percent (sic!) in the first quarter of 2011, making it the first profitable one in the company’s history. The blog post says there are some 10 million viewers per month now watching international news channels such as BBC World News, AlJazeera, or AlArabya on the peer-to-peer service, as access is free to everyone who installs the client necessary. Mobile sessions also increased to some 15 million in March 2011.
Posting in der Mailingliste nettime-l, 28. April 2011.