Live Internet Television

Orange Africa Cup of Nations

ivi, Inc. with its channel partner Africast, is carrying all the final matches of the Orange Africa Cup of Nations live online through the downloadable ivi TV player. There is a free promotional period of the preliminary round matches Jan 10th through the 23rd, where some matches will be rerun. The real fun starts when the finals start on Jan 24th, where ivi is offering 1/4 Finals, 1/2 Finals, 3rd Place, and the Final match for Pay-Per-View of the COCAN sponsored events. This marks the first time that viewers can watch live football from Africa to the world on the Internet.

Viewers will be able to choose per day bundles, or pay to watch the entire finals according to the live CAN Angola airing times:

PPV Events:

Orange Africa Cup Playoffs Complete Package LIVE – All Matches

Starting Jan 24, 2010 (16:00 UTC) – Jan 31, 2010

Orange Africa Cup Quarter Finals LIVE Jan 24, 2010

Angola v. Ghana (16:00 UTC)
Cote d’Ivoire v. Algeria (19:30 UTC)

Orange Africa Cup Quarter Finals LIVE Jan 25, 2010

Egypt v. Cameroon (16:00 UTC)
Zambia v. Nigeria (19:30 UTC)

Orange Africa Cup Semi Finals LIVE Jan 28, 2010

Winner 25 v. Winner 28 (16:00 UTC)
Winner 26 v. Winner 27 (19:30 UTC)

Orange Africa Cup Third Place Game LIVE Jan 30, 2010

Loser 29 v. Loser 30 (16:00 UTC)

Orange Africa Cup Final LIVE Jan 31, 2010

Winner 29 v. Winner 30 (16:00 UTC)

With the proliferation of Adobe Flash-based sites streaming live content, including Hulu’s announcement that it is live-streaming a Dave Matthews concert and other the event-streaming done by IBM (US Open) and Microsoft (Beijing Olympics), it’s an exciting time.

Cable and satellite don’t have to fear Internet content cannibalization … yet.  There are still hurdles that have to be overcome before people will entirely abandon their cable or satellite service.  The user experience and bandwidth costs are primary among them.

At ivi we call the traditional TV user experience “alpha-state viewing.”  Users turn on their television and watch whatever is on.  We estimate that traditional television is 90-percent alpha-state viewing.  Interactive viewing and event-based viewing make up the remaining percentage.  Internet television has made strides towards increasing the user experience in interactive and event-based viewing.  However, Internet television has not yet replicated the traditional television experience of: “Let’s see what’s
on!”

Additionally, until the Internet’s transactional delivery model can be turned into a broadcast delivery model, the cost of delivering large scale, broad-appeal video is going to be both cost and bandwidth prohibitive.  The user experience is the ultimate leg up for cable and satellite providers.  Until somebody creates an “alpha-state viewing” experience for Internet TV, users won’t depart cable and satellite in the high volume contemplated in articles like this.

ivi TV was designed to overcome these hurdles. Live Internet TV will be a reality soon.

Those of you that have visited the ivi TV Website and found a sparse single page will want to cruise by and see our populated site, just launched today. You’ll learn more about what ivi TV is all about, and how it works. We’re still pre-launch but this visibility is a big step!