StreamGuys, Inc. Supports Chicago Public Radio for Enterprise-Level Podcasting &...

Mon Apr 7, 2008 10:00am EDT

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StreamGuys, Inc. Supports Chicago Public Radio for Enterprise-Level Podcasting & Streaming of This American Life

ARCATA, Calif.--(Business Wire)--
StreamGuys, Inc., a streaming media and content delivery provider,
is partnering with Chicago Public Radio to provide enterprise-level
web audio services for Chicago Public Radio productions, from local
content to national programs such as This American Life and Sound
Opinions. StreamGuys works alongside Chicago Public Radio to offer
live and on-demand services -- defining, troubleshooting, and scaling
as necessary and advising on emerging technologies.

Chicago Public Radio is nationally recognized as home to some of
radio's most innovative programming. Its syndicated programs include
This American Life, a groundbreaking show that has won nearly every
major broadcasting honor -- including the Peabody, DuPont-Columbia,
and Edward R. Murrow Awards. TAL debuted locally in 1995 and is now
heard by more than 1.7 million listeners a week on more than 500
public radio stations. Its free podcast, hosted by StreamGuys, is
among the most popular in America.

According to Shiow-Jiau Yung, who works on Chicago Public Radio's
national initiatives, the station began working with StreamGuys after
a well-known content delivery network (CDN) was unable to help Chicago
Public Radio transition its web audio services from RealAudio to mp3.

"Our previous CDN had set up our services in a way that was not
very helpful to us or our audience," said Yung. "Instead of helping us
improve and diversify our services, they told us that what we wanted
to do wasn't possible -- despite widespread evidence to the contrary.
The equation just didn't balance. It was extremely frustrating,
especially for an organization like Chicago Public Radio, where we
need to use our resources wisely."

StreamGuys initially set up a Windows server to house two new live
streams and on-demand mp3s as well as archival RealAudio. Due to the
popularity of the program, on-demand streaming for This American Life
soon required a dedicated server, and StreamGuys worked with Chicago
Public Radio to perform the migration. Additional traffic from the TAL
podcast necessitated further expansion, and TAL web audio is now
delivered by a cluster of load-balanced, Linux servers.

Concurrent with these developments, StreamGuys supported other
Chicago Public Radio productions -- from local content to the national
program Sound Opinions, from launching other podcasts to hosting
entire websites. Moving forward, priorities include the implementation
of Flash streaming and ad insertion technology, and the partnership
continues to flourish.

"When we're trying to understand or resolve a technical issue, I
love being able to pick up the phone and talk with a real, live person
-- whether one of their technical services crew or the CTO of the
company," said Yung. "And we're not billed separately for tech
support, so working with StreamGuys is like having a team of web media
experts in house."

For more information about This American Life or Chicago Public
Radio, please visit www.thisamericanlife.org or
www.chicagopublicradio.org.

Pipeline Communications
Brian Galante, 215-659-8111
briang@pipecomm.com