If you were online on Tuesday watching breathlessly as Paul Hession took part in the 100m sprint semi-final or when Ken Egan and Paddy Barnes guaranteed themselves at least a bronze medal in the Beijing Workers’ Gymnasium, then you were watching one of the 12,736 concurrent live video streams served from the RTÉ.ie website, making it the highest ever peak online viewership for the broadcasting company.
RTÉ’s streaming service, which is delivered by Complete Telecom’s network, was also enjoyed by radio fans with a total of 20,601 radio streams delivered throughout Tuesday and 2,687 simultaneous live streams served at its peak.
By Wednesday RTÉ said its online coverage of the Olympics had grown steadily with Darren Sutherland’s fight against Venezuelan Alfonso Blanco watched by more than 20,000 people.
This peak online viewership record for RTÉ.ie was originally held by the Munster Football Final replay in July 2006, when the People’s Republic gave the Kingdom a good thrashing!
Were you one of the tens of thousands of white collar workers around the country peeking at RTÉ.ie’s coverage in between writing reports and trawling through spreadsheets?
Kevin Murphy, managing director for Complete Telecom, said: “RTÉ’s online coverage of the Olympics has been very impressive and extremely popular with office workers across the country. Many might not otherwise have been able to reach a television or radio to enjoy the success of our athletes.”
By Marie Boran
Pictured: Olympics 2008 boxing action from the Workers’ Gymnasium in Beijing
