WASHINGTON, D.C. — July 10, 2017— The Switch was the primary provider of transport services for the Facebook Live and YouTube broadcasts of “A Capitol Fourth,” America’s national Independence Day celebration, broadcast live from the West Lawn of the United States Capitol.
Capital Concerts and PBS, host of the live television broadcast, relied on The Switch for both fiber and satellite contribution services to support the linear and Over-The-Top (OTT) distribution of “A Capitol Fourth.” In addition, The Switch provided OTT production control room and personnel resources in Los Angeles to prepare, format and submit the program, including live Closed Captions, to both YouTube and Facebook for the Eastern Time Zone and Pacific Time Zone telecasts.
“Broadcasting the event over OTT, in addition to our live broadcast on PBS, allowed the program to be viewed by millions around the world including troops stationed internationally,” said Michael Colbert, President and Executive Producer, Capital Concerts.
“We are honored to be part of this annual program that celebrates our nation’s birthday,” said Scott Beers, Chairman and CEO, The Switch. “This year, we have added our suite of OTT products to enhance the delivery of this great event to multiple platforms around the world.”
2017 marked the 37th annual edition of “A Capitol Fourth.” This year’s event was hosted by Emmy® Award-nominated actor and producer John Stamos and included performances from The Beach Boys, The Blues Brothers, and Kellie Pickler among others. The concert, which is free and open to the public, also drew hundreds of thousands in attendance.
About The Switch:
Beers Enterprises, LLC d/b/a The Switch is the leading video solutions service provider in North America. The Switch currently provides advanced video switching and local fiber circuit services, satellite services, scalable Ethernet, and “HomeRuns” remote production via its FiveNines Service across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. The Switch was awarded a U.S. System Patent for customer controlled video data content delivery (U.S. Patent # 9306873). The Switch was awarded the 2013 New Bay Media Product Innovation Award for Switch-IT and the 2012 Broadcast Engineering Excellence Award for Network Automation. The Switch was created in 1991 to provide cost-effective, customer controlled television signal routing services to the broadcast industry. The Switch has been embraced by the marketplace since its inception and has grown to its current market leadership position. For more information, please visit:www.theswitch.tv
