Spring Break
Anticipating huge demand, CBS doubles bandwidth for NCAA video streams
The Associated Press
Issue date: 3/8/07 Section: News
NEW YORK - CBS Corp. is doubling the amount of bandwidth available for viewing NCAA tournament games this year, but will still have to restrict the number of viewers to keep the system running smoothly.
The video streams proved very popular last year. CBS is also beefing up the image quality for the video and making the online video player larger, which will take up some of the added bandwidth.
Joe Ferreira, the vice president of programming at CBS SportsLine, says the site is aiming to accommodate up to 300,000 viewers at any given time, up from around 175,000 simultaneous viewers last year.
Once that limit is reached, fans will be diverted to online "waiting rooms" until enough other users leave to allow new ones in.
CBS has been offering online viewing of the NCAA basketball games since 2003, but this is only the second year that they will be offered for free and supported with advertising. In previous years, fans had to pay for a subscription to view the games.
Steve Snyder, chief operating officer of CBS's digital media unit, said 2006 was a "year of learning" for selling advertising during the games. This year, CBS has a tighter grasp of how much ad time will be available and how to sell it, Snyder said.
Showing the NCAA games online is starting to turn into a real business for CBS. With as many as four different games being played simultaneously during the early rounds of the tournament, offering video streams over the Internet allows CBS another way to make money.
In order to keep their affiliated stations happy, however, CBS has to observe local "blackout" rules that prevent Internet users in a given area from watching a game online that is already appearing on their local CBS-affiliated station. That prevents users and advertising dollars from being leeched away.
There are a total of 56 such "out-of-market" games during the first three rounds of the tournament, but after accounting for the blackout rules most viewers would have a choice of about 37 games, CBS said.
The video streams proved very popular last year. CBS is also beefing up the image quality for the video and making the online video player larger, which will take up some of the added bandwidth.
Joe Ferreira, the vice president of programming at CBS SportsLine, says the site is aiming to accommodate up to 300,000 viewers at any given time, up from around 175,000 simultaneous viewers last year.
Once that limit is reached, fans will be diverted to online "waiting rooms" until enough other users leave to allow new ones in.
CBS has been offering online viewing of the NCAA basketball games since 2003, but this is only the second year that they will be offered for free and supported with advertising. In previous years, fans had to pay for a subscription to view the games.
Steve Snyder, chief operating officer of CBS's digital media unit, said 2006 was a "year of learning" for selling advertising during the games. This year, CBS has a tighter grasp of how much ad time will be available and how to sell it, Snyder said.
Showing the NCAA games online is starting to turn into a real business for CBS. With as many as four different games being played simultaneously during the early rounds of the tournament, offering video streams over the Internet allows CBS another way to make money.
In order to keep their affiliated stations happy, however, CBS has to observe local "blackout" rules that prevent Internet users in a given area from watching a game online that is already appearing on their local CBS-affiliated station. That prevents users and advertising dollars from being leeched away.
There are a total of 56 such "out-of-market" games during the first three rounds of the tournament, but after accounting for the blackout rules most viewers would have a choice of about 37 games, CBS said.
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