Ad-free Ustream unaffordable for most

Posted by Fr. Roderick on Nov 3, 2010 in News, Reviews, Tools | 2 comments

In an earlier article we mentioned that the popular streaming video service Ustream.tv would offer users the option to turn of ads for a fee. Ustream has now made public how much Ad-Free broadcasting will cost you. And it doesn’t come cheap!

Pricing

Ustream offers three plans:

A ‘starter’ plan that costs $99 / Month and gives you “100 ad-free Viewer Hours”. Ustream will bill you an additional 50 cents per additional Viewer Hour.

A ‘standard’ option that gives you 4000 Ad-free Viewer Hours with 24 cents per additional hour for a hefty $499 / Month.

A ‘premium’ plan for the huge sum of $999 / Month that allows for 9000 Ad-free Viewer Hours, with 20 cents charged per additional hour.

What is a ‘viewer hour’?

Now you might think that for $99, Ustream would allow you to stream 100 hours worth of video to an audience of any size. But the small print on their application page specifies that “a viewer hour is one person watching for one hour, two people watching for 30 minutes, etc. The number of viewer hours you use determines your cost.”

So if you have an audience of 100 people, streaming just ONE hour of video ad-free to those people will cost you $99! I cannot imagine anyone willing to pay such prices.

Commercial prices

These prices seem to be aimed at bigger, commercial organizations, not at the individual Ustream user, which is a pity. I don’t know many people that would be ready to pay a minimum $1200 per year just to stream video to a small audience.

For parishes that would like to use Ustream to stream videos of their Masses and events, having to pay $99 to stream one hour of ad-free video to 100 people is a ridiculous proposition.

Non-profit plans needed
Unless Ustream comes up with more reasonable rates for individual users and for non-profit organizations, I cannot recommend their Ad-free plans.

What do you think of the rates? Do you mind the ads if you use Ustream for Catholic purposes? Are there any alternatives to Ustream that offer a better deal? Let us know in the comments!