iStream ties up with Total Sports Asia to live stream Brazil's national soccer meet

Online video service provider iStream.com has signed a three-year agreement with Total Sports Asia to live stream the Brazil's national soccer championship Brasileirão Série A, in India.

The 38-round championship will be aired till Dec 2 this year. All the matches and their highlights will also be available on demand.

"In terms of soccer excellence, Brasileirão Série A is among the best soccer leagues in the world. And that's not surprising as the country has been the breeding ground for several soccer superstars over the past few decades," said Radhakrishnan Ramachandran, founder and CEO of iStream.com.

The Bangalore-based startup will also stream the São Paulo state championship (Campeonato Paulista), the most competitive and organised regional championship. The meet will kick off in January 2013 and will continue till the second week of May.

"With increasing broadband penetration in the country, it was important for us to extend our offerings and showcase the Brazilian soccer league on the web. With iStream, we have found the right partner who will stream the exciting league to the increasing number of internet subscribers in India," said Vishal Jaison, director (sales & business development) at Total Sports Asia.

iStream, which raised $5 million from private equity firm SAIF Partners in November 2011, is further planning to introduce a pay-per-use model for video streaming in India by the end of this year. The company is also setting up its own news studio for live streaming.

Launched in December 2011, iStream.com has already grown to 2 million unique users per month, translating to over 8 million video views a month. The company claims to upload close to 500 videos a day and has uploaded about 120,000 videos so far. It streams 26 news channels in English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam, and by December 2013, it is targeting to reach 5 million unique users and over 20 million video views per month.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)