1.5 Million People Watch Live Video Coverage From Rightster and ITN Productions of the Murdoch Phone Hacking Parliamentary Hearing

LONDON, July 20, 2011 -

An audience of over 1.5 million people watched yesterday’s live
video coverage of the UK Parliamentary hearing into the on-going
News International phone hacking scandal, via the live stream
provided by Rightster in partnership with ITN Productions.
 Rightster’s video solutions were used by ITN Productions to
distribute a live stream of the proceedings to five major publisher
sites, namely the Guardian, the Mail Online, MSN, itn.co.uk and
Facebook (via ITN’s page).

The headline statistics for the live stream were:

• 1.53 million total unique stream starts across publisher sites
  (MailOnline, the Guardian, MSN, ITN’s Facebook Page, itn.co.uk),
   indicating the total number of people who watched the
  proceedings
• A surge in views around the incident when a protester attacked
  Rupert Murdoch;  views reached a peak when the attack took
  place with concurrent streams spiking by 25% in just 30 secs,
  indicating the power of social media like Facebook & Twitter to
  spread news instantaneously

Charlie Muirhead, CEO of Rightster, said:  ”These figures
indicate not just the compelling nature of the phone hacking saga,
but also the rising importance of online media and live video
streaming as a way for mass audiences to engage in news events
globally. Rightster is committed to helping content owners and
publishers bring such significant live events to a worldwide
audience, in the most efficient and innovative way possible.”

Mark Browning, Managing Director of ITN Productions, said:
“Following our success with the Royal Wedding, ITN Productions has
further consolidated its position at the forefront of news event
live streaming.  With our partners including the biggest
commercial news sites in the UK, we will be looking to deliver more
events in the coming months.”

ABOUT RIGHTSTER

Rightster is a B2B system for media rights management, providing
technology solutions and expert advice which simplify the business
of online video.  The Rightster system connects content
owners, publishers and advertisers, enabling them to build
audience, accelerate revenues, reduce costs and simplify
operations.  Through its Advanced Video Streaming (AVS)
solutions, Rightster focuses on enabling business transactions with
easy to use, powerful software which puts its customers in control
of their video content. Rightster believes in a transparent
partnership model, using free tools and performance based fees
rather than costly and complicated up-front licenses.
 Rightster uses a unique ’social web’ model which lets content
companies easily connect and build up their own private networks
via the Rightster system, facilitating content distribution, rights
transactions, monetisation and media asset management.
 Founded in Sept 2010, Rightster is growing rapidly and is
already used by a wide range of clients such as ITN (the UK’s
largest commercial news producer), the British Fashion Council
(owner of London Fashion Week and other fashion events), and
thousands of publisher sites globally.  

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ABOUT ITN PRODUCTIONS

ITN Productions creates multi-platform content for major global
brands, covering genres such as factual, entertainment, news and
corporate production. Clients that commission award-winning
programmes from ITN Productions include major UK and international
broadcasters such as ITV, the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, History
and Discovery, with television commissions including Climbing Great
Buildings on BBC2 and Mud Men on History. Entertainment content
made by ITN Productions includes FYI Daily on ITV2, The Breakfast
Fix on 4Music, The Movie Show on ITV2, and The Showbiz 411 on
YouTube and Twitter, with international programmes including The
Cool Edition on China’s biggest English language channel. ITN
Productions also creates news content for a wide range of clients
such as Yahoo!, MSN, Virgin Media, Telegraph Media Group, The
Independent, Metro, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Star, and
the Illiffe and MNA publishing groups. ITN News is the most viewed
news channel on YouTube. Corporate clients also work with ITN
Productions to create content, including Hodder Education,
Direct.gov and NHS Choices.

Press Contact Rightster: Rebecca Hutson, Communications Manager, Rightster, Phone: +44(0)207-183-4545 / (0)7827-850-663 Email: rebecca at rightster.com Press Contact ITN: Dan Faulks, Head of Press, ITN, Phone: +44(0)20-7430-4825 / (0)7554-439100 Email: dan.faulks at itn.co.uk