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Trump Inauguration Becomes Most Live-Streamed Event Ever

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Whatever your politics, the numbers for President Donald Trump's inauguration are in - and they're "yuge."

The Jan. 20 inaugural ceremony was the most live-streamed event on record, peaking at 4.6 million concurrent viewers - nearly 40 percent higher than the 3.35 million streaming on election night, according to content delivery network Akamai.

A basket of seven broadcasters on Akamai's network hit a peak of 8.7 terabytes per second (Tbps), nearly 6.5 times the current average.

While comparing favorably with the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama - which topped out at 1.1 Tbps - and the 2011 Royal Wedding (1.3 Tbps), analysts say the dramatic changes since 2010 in how users consume live video poses challenges in making any such comparison.

But according to Akamai, one of the more helpful indicators is the contrast in user behavior online from inauguration days in 2009 and 2017: while retail commerce traffic to some of the biggest online retailers dipped during Obama's ceremony, Trump's inauguration saw a 1.2-fold increase in commerce traffic during the same period.

Exactly why that occurred, however, is still unclear.

"Whether the retail activity this year was due to Americans needing retail therapy to deal with the changing administration, or digital consumers being more skilled at multitasking, especially when consuming the inauguration news via online streaming sites while they shopped, is up for debate," the report stated.

The inauguration of the 45th U.S. president also drew the biggest Twitter live-streaming audience ever, according to Variety.

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