Advertising Age posted this 3 Minute AdAge report on Streaming Media East keynote by Akamai CEO Paul Sagan: The Online-Video Tipping Point Is Here from this past week. Sagan said that after more than 10 years of the evolution of online video delivery it's finally reached a tipping point where it can compete directly with traditional broadcast television.

Here's the video from the AdAge YouTube Channel.




Akamai CEO Paul Sagan sees Larger Implications Than Many Imagine and More Waves of Media Disruption Ahead
NEW YORK (YouTube.com/AdAge) -- How big of a game changer will online video watching ultimately be for the television industry? And when will those changes really start to happen big time? According to Akamai CEO Paul Sagan, we're watching the tipping point occur right now and sweeping industry upheaval may come sooner and more dramatically than many imagine. Mr. Sagan was keynote speaker at this week's Streaming Media East conference.
Produced by Hoag Levins Published: May 14, 2009

See Contentinople - Akamai CEO: Online Video Has Reached a 'Tipping Point' for Ryan Lawler's write up on the Paul Sagan's keynote:
"Due to vast advancements in video quality and scale, Akamai Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM) CEO Paul Sagan said that we've finally reached a point where consumers will start to view online video the same way they view television. In a keynote speech at Streaming Media East today, Sagan pointed to the large number of viewers watching high-definition (HD) streams of live events like the Presidential Inauguration and the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament online. As a result, Sagan said he believed that online video had finally reached a "tipping point."

"[The inauguration] was on every TV channel, and it was free. But if you add up the number of people in the audience online, you had 10 million viewers," Sagan said. "That's the audience of 60 Minutes, 24, or Survivor. We're now delivering prime-time-sized audiences on the Web." According to Sagan, the growth of online video is analogous to the spread of the pay TV model, back when cable television was a novelty for users that couldn't get good reception through free analog channels. Then HBO came along and changed everything..."

Also, see Online Video Watch for analysis on Sagan's keynote:
"In the opening keynote at Streaming Media East today Akamai CEO Paul Sagan provided a brief history of video on the web over the past decade and pointed to the ability to scale adaptive streaming technology as the tipping point that will enable online video to reach a TV size audiences. According to Sagan we’re entering a period that “we’re going to think of that of the golden age of the internet.”

“Internet video is finally competitive with television, said Sagan, “it is going to change TV the way that newspapers and magazines have been changed…What happened in cable TV, when cable was first starting, cable was the way that people who didn’t have good TV got TV.” Eventually there was “flowering of new biz model once there was a critical mass, i believe the same thing is now happening with online video"....”

Download Paul  Sagan's slides from Streamingmedia.com:
Streaming Media East Keynote: Paul Sagan, Akamai
http://www.streamingmedia.com/east/presentations/SMEast09-Keynote-Akamai.pdf