"This is the first such study of its kind." said Shai Berger, CEO of Streamcheck. "No one has ever provided to the public objective quality data on specific consumer sites. Given the attention that we expect for this study, we knew we had to do much more than just a report card. It was important for our methodology to be airtight – hence the massive data set and extensive analysis in our 8 page report."

Streamcheck has an international network of measurement computers ("Scanners") deployed throughout the US, Canada and Europe. Streamcheck Scanners mimic the experience of streaming end-users while gathering crucial metrics that allow content owners and service providers to monitor streaming quality. Since June 2000, Streamcheck has conducted millions checks on streaming content, ranging from Internet radio and financial news to live video events and on-demand entertainment content. It is this scope, reach and unique capacity to measure streaming performance that has attracted the industry's most prominent content owners and service providers to Streamcheck's solutions.

Results
Although aggregate availability was in the high 90's for all sites, breaking stories were often unreachable during peak viewing hours. ABCNews had the lowest overall availability (97%) and the most outages: 37 streams had outages lasting 12 minutes or more. MSNBC had the highest and most consistent availability, with no significant outages at all. CNN's RealVideo streams had the best startup times (all locations averaged less than 6 seconds) and excellent availability. But their Windows Media streams were more uncertain: 10 stories had availability below 90%. This difference is interesting, given that CNN's subscription service is done in cooperation with RealNetworks.

"Streaming quality has improved considerably since a similar study one year ago but the emergence of subscription fees means the bar must be higher. Consumers expecting dependable access to breaking stories may be disappointed depending on the site and streaming format they choose." said Berger.

The full report is available for download at the following URL: www.streamcheck.com/sc-newsvideostudy.pdf.

About Streamcheck
Streamcheck provides end-to-end measurement and monitoring solutions for streaming media, helping customers deliver their message with consistent quality and reliability. Streamcheck's family of services provides 24x7 monitoring, diagnostic tools and customizable reports. Streamcheck offers an objective way to demonstrate quality to customers, advertisers and partners. Streamcheck's distributed network of measurement devices ("Scanners") has performed more than 10 million individual checks on streams of all types and covers major cities in the US, Canada and Europe. To learn more, visit www.streamcheck.com.