• Silicon Alley Insider, Monday, June 1, 2009 11:31 AM

CBS News on Monday announced a landmark deal with Web startup Ustream to stream all of its Evening News broadcasts and breaking news reports live over the Web, Silicon Alley Insider's Nicholas Carlson reports. This is the first such deal signed by any major media company's broadcast news division. It is a non-exclusive ad-revenue sharing agreement. According to Ustream CEO and co-founder Brad Hunstable, the deal is considered a "validation" for both Ustream and the live-streaming industry as a whole.

The idea here is to make CBS News's Ustream feed the place people go for premium news coverage when a story breaks. During a major breaking news event, Hunstable says, "Twitter will be going crazy with everyone that wants to talk about it and the only place to watch will be on Ustream."

For its part, CBS was intrigued by the idea of offering live video on the Web, as well as its desire to reach a younger audience demographic. The media giant decided to go with Ustream over competitors Livestream.com and Justin.TV because of its technology and how "responsive" it has been to issues like pirated content.

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