Akamai Selected as Exclusive Streaming Provider for Oscar.com, The Official Website of the 76th Annual Academy Awards
Taking place on Sunday, February 29th at 5:00 PST/8:00 EST, the Oscars will be broadcast live on ABC. To complement the Academy Awards broadcast, www.Oscar.com, the official website of the Oscars, will feature live streaming footage of red carpet arrivals and interviews with Oscar® winners from the press room. Interviews will also be available on-demand after the broadcast. Leading up to the event, streamed trailers from the nominated films and performances will be available. Oscar.com will rely on Akamai's services for the delivery of all streaming media on the Oscar.com site.
"Akamai remains synonymous with supporting today's most successful Internet events," said William Wang, manager of technology at Oscar.com. "The popularity of the Oscars is experienced on a global scale. Akamai offers us a unique extensibility to our site infrastructure, and we have chosen to once again rely on their services for this important event. By scaling to meet demand for content, we are able to ensure a high-quality streaming presentation for our viewers."
Utilizing Akamai's global network of over 14,000 servers, Oscar.com will have the scalability on demand to support a worldwide audience. Akamai has partnered with BT Broadcast Services (BTBS) for encoding and signal acquisition services for the live webcast. BTBS will provide signal acquisition from back stage of the Kodak Theatre to BTBS' Los Angeles and Washington, DC Media Centers for monitoring purposes. The signal will then be digitally encoded at the Washington, DC Media Center for delivery to the Akamai network for distribution on the Oscar.com web site.
In addition, Akamai's integrated reporting tools will provide Oscar.com managers with real-time control over their site infrastructure to effectively measure the success of their programming and better understand visitors and their interests. This business insight allows companies to refine their value proposition and enhance their customers' online experience.
The 76th Annual Academy Awards will be presented at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland® and televised live by ABC beginning at 5:00 PST. For more about the 76th Annual Academy Awards, log onto www.oscar.com.
Oscar.com is a co-production of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and ABC.com.
About Akamai
Akamai® is the global leader in distributed computing solutions and services, making the Internet predictable, scalable, and secure for conducting profitable e-business. The Akamai on demand platform enables customers to easily extend their Web operations - with full control - anywhere, anytime, without the cost of building out infrastructure. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Akamai serves hundreds of today's most successful enterprises and government agencies around the globe. Akamai is The Business Internet. For more information, visit www.akamai.com.
# # #
Akamai Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
The release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai's management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, the effects of any attempts to intentionally disrupt our services or network by hackers or others, failure to have available sufficient transmission capacity, a failure of Akamai's network infrastructure, and other factors that are discussed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.
| Contacts: |
||
|
Jeff Young Media Relations Akamai Technologies, Inc. 617-444-3913 jyoung@akamai.com |
--or-- |
Alexis Rapo Media Relations Oscar.com/ABC.com 818-460-5048 alexis.rapo@abc.com |
Oscar.com will rely on Akamai to provide millions of visitors with live streaming coverage of the Oscars®
CAMBRIDGE, MA, February 23, 2004 - Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the global leader in distributed computing solutions and services, today announced that it has been selected as the exclusive streaming provider for Oscar.com, the official Web site of the 76th Annual Academy Awards. Akamai's globally distributed computing platform will be used to deliver live and on-demand streaming video on Oscar.com.Taking place on Sunday, February 29th at 5:00 PST/8:00 EST, the Oscars will be broadcast live on ABC. To complement the Academy Awards broadcast, www.Oscar.com, the official website of the Oscars, will feature live streaming footage of red carpet arrivals and interviews with Oscar® winners from the press room. Interviews will also be available on-demand after the broadcast. Leading up to the event, streamed trailers from the nominated films and performances will be available. Oscar.com will rely on Akamai's services for the delivery of all streaming media on the Oscar.com site.
"Akamai remains synonymous with supporting today's most successful Internet events," said William Wang, manager of technology at Oscar.com. "The popularity of the Oscars is experienced on a global scale. Akamai offers us a unique extensibility to our site infrastructure, and we have chosen to once again rely on their services for this important event. By scaling to meet demand for content, we are able to ensure a high-quality streaming presentation for our viewers."
Utilizing Akamai's global network of over 14,000 servers, Oscar.com will have the scalability on demand to support a worldwide audience. Akamai has partnered with BT Broadcast Services (BTBS) for encoding and signal acquisition services for the live webcast. BTBS will provide signal acquisition from back stage of the Kodak Theatre to BTBS' Los Angeles and Washington, DC Media Centers for monitoring purposes. The signal will then be digitally encoded at the Washington, DC Media Center for delivery to the Akamai network for distribution on the Oscar.com web site.
In addition, Akamai's integrated reporting tools will provide Oscar.com managers with real-time control over their site infrastructure to effectively measure the success of their programming and better understand visitors and their interests. This business insight allows companies to refine their value proposition and enhance their customers' online experience.
The 76th Annual Academy Awards will be presented at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland® and televised live by ABC beginning at 5:00 PST. For more about the 76th Annual Academy Awards, log onto www.oscar.com.
Oscar.com is a co-production of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and ABC.com.
About Akamai
Akamai® is the global leader in distributed computing solutions and services, making the Internet predictable, scalable, and secure for conducting profitable e-business. The Akamai on demand platform enables customers to easily extend their Web operations - with full control - anywhere, anytime, without the cost of building out infrastructure. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Akamai serves hundreds of today's most successful enterprises and government agencies around the globe. Akamai is The Business Internet. For more information, visit www.akamai.com.
Akamai Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
The release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai's management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, the effects of any attempts to intentionally disrupt our services or network by hackers or others, failure to have available sufficient transmission capacity, a failure of Akamai's network infrastructure, and other factors that are discussed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.
