Partnering with startup Ustream, CBS News will today announce plans to live-stream all of its “Evening News” broadcasts and breaking news reports over the Internet. The deal is a non-exclusive, ad-revenue sharing deal.

It’s a first for any major media company’s broadcast news division, and a “validation” for both Ustream and the live-streaming industry as whole, Ustream CEO and co-founder Brad Hunstable told us.

To understand why the deal happened, you have to go back to January 15, 2009. That’s the day US Airways Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River. Just as the news broke, a passenger on a nearbye ferry uploaded an image of the floating plane to Twitpic and linked to it on Twitter. Quickly, hundreds of thousands of people rushed to see the image and talk about it.

And that was just one, static image.

CONTINUE READING ENTIRE ARTICLE