Content delivery network Akamai announced today that their partner and live TV provider Livestation has officially launched its streaming video solution which allows any broadcaster to deliver live TV to the iPhone. To demonstrate the capabilities of this technology, Livestation has also launched two applications which stream live TV news over both 3G and Wi-Fi connections. Other broadcasters that choose to build mobile applications with the company’s new white label turn-key solution can have an app branded and then sold in the iTunes App Store as the broadcaster’s own.
Livestation quietly launched their first mobile application streaming live content over a month ago with the release of BBC World News, which debuted in June 2009. This iPhone application delivers live TV news to viewers in 16 European countries but is sadly not available in the US as of yet. European viewers can watch the news over two types of streams provided by the app: either a 96 K stream on 3G and Edge networks or a higher-quality 300 K stream delivered over Wi-Fi. Akamai’s CDN steps in to help Livestation scale these streams to the millions of iPhones worldwide.
In the U.S., Livestation also began offering Al Jazeera English Live (iTunes link) last month, a live TV application built using the same technology. As with BBC News, the live TV channel is available over both Wi-Fi and 3G. Around the corner, NASA may also be launching a live TV streaming application using Livestation’s technology. Already a content partner, NASA’s iPhone app has a description that reads: “Update Coming that adds Live NASA Public TV streaming to your device.”
While both of these news applications offer TV streams from stations that Livestation is already partners with by way of their live TV desktop application, the company’s iPhone streaming solution represents “just the tip of the iceberg,” claims Livestation CEO Matteo Berlucchi. “Once other broadcasters see the immediate business benefits of the revenue model we are offering… we expect usage to increase.”
The revenue model he is referring to is the one where iPhone and iPod Touch users purchase the mobile applications built using the Livestation iPhone technology platform in the iTunes App Store. They can then also serve ads within the app itself, if the broadcaster so chooses. Those ads don’t have to be simple text or image links, either – they can be video ads, too, much like what you would see on TV. In addition, Berlucchi says that paid-for content that goes beyond that of the app’s initial purchase price is also a possibility in the future.
According to Livestation’s website, the iPhone solution uses the company’s own streaming protocol to deliver the TV streams. However, they note that they plan to support the native Apple Streaming protocol as soon as it becomes available. That seems to confirm our suspicions from earlier this year about live streaming on the iPhone, which came about when we uncovered Apple’s IETF submission for a live streaming protocol.
Livestation is not the only company to provide a means of watching TV on your iPhone, but the current crop of iPhone applications like SlingPlayer, Live TV, and Orb require a set-top box, a TV tuner, and/or software installed on your computer. Livestation’s apps, on the other hand, simply require an iPhone.
To see the technology in action, you can watch this video on Vimeo, where the BBC News application is demonstrated.
