AOL was justly praised for their superb coverage of this hugely popular international multi-stage rock concert. While the TV coverage provided viewers with a narrow selection, forcing them to miss many of their favorite acts, AOL offered a menu of all the acts performing and the option of watching live streaming video and audio of any country they chose. A couple days later, viewers could revisit AOL and select on-demand performances from the show by their favorite acts by the song performed. To get this industry transforming trick performed right, AOL hired Incited Media.
We set up our master control headquarters in a 50 foot production truck outside AOL headquarters. From there, our team of 45 went to work, linking the truck with the concert venues in the various countries. It was Incited's responsibility to get video to AOL's live broadcasting facility in Virginia as well as to their on-demand coding center in Culver City. We managed 8 live feeds for 7 live concerts (the eighth was a world feed), taking the helm of master control for each. We had a huge amount of content that on paper seemed staggering, but our team and their dedication and know-how enabled us to meet the challenge for the live shows while prepping tapes and facilitating encoding so that AOL would have a huge battery of content to offer just days later.
