• by Shankar Gupta , July 13, 2005

Capitalizing on the success of Live 8, America Online, XM Satellite, and AEG, a live event presenting company, announced yesterday the creation of a joint business venture dubbed "Network Live," which aims to bring live events to multiple platforms, both online and off.

"We're taking what AOL music started and expanding it to the next level," said AOL CEO John Miller. "This venture taps into the immediacy of the Internet for live shows and live shows on demand."

The venture, which will be headed by Kevin Wall, the executive producer of Live 8, aims to generate live content--primarily concerts and comedy shows initially--for distribution on AOL's Web channels and XM's satellite radio.

"We're creating the network of the future, which is being able to access entertainment digital content, anytime, anywhere, on any device," said Wall.

The deals will be brokered through AEG, which has contacts with many big-name artists through its management of large venues for live events, including the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the Colosseum at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, and the Nokia Theater in Grand Prairie, Texas. AEG is also creating a network of studios to host live performances.

Live Network will be monetized through licensing fees paid by distribution channels - video on demand, mobile video, and HDTV - looking to carry the company's live content. The company's initial distributors will be XM's satellite radio and AOL's Live music site, but according to Wall, they plan to establish other distribution deals in the future. Wall said that in the future, the events will also look for advertiser sponsorships, adding another revenue stream.

Individual partners can then monetize the licensed content through their own means; in AOL's case, on-site ads, in XM's, through a regular subscriber fee. Although AOL and XM are part-owners in the enterprise, they will nonetheless pay licensing fees for the content.

According to Miller, this deal has been in the works for some time, but the model of Live 8--AOL, XM, and AEG all collaborated in the production and distribution of those concerts--shows that there is some demand for live musical performances on the Internet.

Ben Macklin, a senior analyst for Emarketer, said that Live 8 does serve as a vindication that there is a market for live content on broadband. "[Live 8] certainly was one of the more successful online content experiences that AOL or anyone else has had," he said. "It also perhaps indicates that we have now reached the broadband critical mass, which means that there is an audience out there for this kind of content."