Presidential Inauguration sets new record for live video streaming of news event on Akamai

CDN leader Akamai Technologies, Inc has announced that video streaming coverage of the 2017 Presidential Inauguration is the largest single live news event that the company has delivered. Live video streaming of the Inauguration peaked at 8.7 Tbps at 12:04 p.m. ET during the opening of the President’s speech, exceeding the previous record of 7.5 Tbps set during Election Day coverage on the evening of November 8, 2016. Akamai supported 4.6 million concurrent viewers of the Inauguration at peak on behalf of its leading broadcaster customers.

“The Presidential Inauguration is the latest in a series of record-breaking live, online video streaming events that we have supported over the last year,” said Bill Wheaton, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Media at Akamai. “More people than ever are watching video online, and it’s being done across more devices at increasingly higher levels of quality.”

From an historical perspective, the 2009 Inauguration reached 1.1 Tbps on Akamai and the Royal Wedding in 2011 hit 1.3 Tbps. More recently, the 2016 Euro soccer tournament final peaked at 7.3 Tbps and the Rio women’s team gymnastics final hit 4.5 Tbps.