Case Study: China Network Television (CNTV) achieves accelerated global HD streaming and streamlined media delivery with Akamai Technologies

CNTV provides high-quality video experiences enabled by Akamai

CNTV, the web-based broadcasting arm of China Central Television, offers global, multilingual live and on-demand video services and aims to be an authoritative Internet broadcaster. Its biggest live event, the annual New Year Gala (part of a TV audience of 700 million), posed a major challenge: growing demand for HD and multi-bitrate streams for widely distributed global and mobile audiences, while cameras and encoders were centralized in Beijing, making reliable worldwide delivery difficult. CNTV needed a one-stop, multi-platform streaming solution to provide high-quality viewing outside China.

CNTV adopted Akamai Media Delivery Solutions and the Akamai Media Player, quickly deploying the New Year Gala across Akamai’s Intelligent Platform with features like PIP and DVR for PC and mobile. The result: over 50,000 concurrent global viewers for the Gala, 100% of foreign web-page visits and 70–80% of video visits accelerated via Akamai, roughly a 70% speed improvement for foreign visitors, more than 1,000 TB of Akamai-accelerated monthly traffic, and a streamlined production workflow with bandwidth savings.

China Network Television (CNTV)

Chen Wei

Deputy Director