By Stevie Smith Jul 16, 2007, 13:26 GMT
Following the recent 24-hour Live Earth music spectacular that was held simultaneously across seven different continents, Microsoft’s MSN has subsequently revealed that it now ranks as the most-watched online event in history.
According to MSN, which served as the event’s official online partner, in excess of 178 million online viewers watched the music-based climate change awareness drive across roughly 30 million streams on July 07.
The Live Earth global concerts were staged in New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, and Hamburg, and were organised by Kevin Wall’s "Save Our Selves" (SOS) activist group – which includes former U.S. vice president Al Gore. Other members include Gore’s own "Alliance for Climate Protection", MSN, and concert production company Control Room.
Microsoft reveals that more than 8 million people watched over 15 million video streams during Live Earth’s coverage, while over 237,000 simultaneous viewers enjoyed MSN’s video streaming of the worldwide concerts, which equates to the most simultaneous viewers ever to have watched an online event.
"Live Earth is officially the largest global entertainment event in history," enthused Al Gore after the huge sway of contributing international recording artists had added their voices to the call for action regarding man-made climate change.
"Live Earth rallied an unprecedented audience to take action to tackle the world's paramount challenge – the climate crisis," commented Kevin Wall in the UK’s The Sun newspaper. "The climate crisis is a global problem that requires a global response – and that is just what we've received," he added.
Backstage during the event, Phil Collins and Genesis expressed surprise after learning their collective carbon footprint, not least, they offered, because they haven’t been touring recently. With tongue pressed firmly into cheek, comedian Ricky Gervais (creator of the BBC’s The Office and Extras) joked that Live Earth’s warbling celebrities had duly helped raise ecological awareness by flying to the global events courtesy of private jets.
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