LONDON, February 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

46 British Fashion Designers live stream on over 100 sites in 200 countries

As London takes centre stage globally in 2012, an unprecedented worldwide audience tuned in online to watch the best of Britain's established and emerging designers showcase their AW12 collections at London Fashion Week. This season's on-schedule shows were live streamed by Rightster (http://www.rightster.com), the British Fashion Council's official video distribution partner. Rightster's cloud-based software centralised, simplified and automated the distribution of all live and on demand video content from the week for the BFC and its partners. Rightster also facilitated delivery of live streams onto designer and publisher Facebook communities for the first time, including the Roksanda Ilincic and Vogue facebook pages, as well as managing the BFC's official YouTube channel.

Caroline Rush, CEO of The British Fashion Council commented:

"We launched the British Fashion Council's digital strategy in 2009 to harness technology and creativity to promote British designers to a global audience. Each season look for new ways to unite fashion and digital innovation. With London playing such a key role on the world stage this year, we are pleased to meet the demand from a worldwide audience for London Fashion Week content, supported by Rightster's innovative technology and live video expertise. "

More designer shows than ever before (46) were live streamed by Rightster, as designers ramped up their digital activity to engage a broad consumer and trade audience online, Rightster's system was used to seamlessly distribute the official content to over 100 broadcast, online and mobile publishers worldwide, with sites such as Elle, Grazia and the Telegraph carrying live and on demand video from the event. This resulted in a 100% increase in the number of viewers year on year, indicating the growing demand from an online audience for live fashion events. 

London Fashion Week is a global event and Rightster delivered live streams to viewers in over 200 countries worldwide, including places as far afield as India, Iran and Israel. The most popular countries measured by number of views were the UK, US, Canada and Germany.  

This season also saw a marked increase in content delivery across multiple platforms and devices, as fashion publishers and designers look to reach consumers wherever they may be. As well as distribution across publisher sites, Facebook and YouTube, Rightster also delivered LFW video onto tablet devices for the first time, via the Times's iPad app.

In addition to distribution, Rightster's system enabled revenue generation around LFW content, integrating best in class advertising solutions, media agencies and brands to ensure global monetisation of the live and on demand video content. To accommodate often fashionably late catwalk shows, Rightster has developed an innovative feature to enable editorial control over when ads are triggered in a live stream, ensuring that fashion loving audiences never miss a look.

Following the success of London Fashion Week, Rightster in partnership with InDigital Media, the BFC's official production company, will provide a similar digital solution to other major fashion weeks throughout the year.  Charlie Muirhead, Rightster CEO commented: 

"The BFC and London Fashion Week are leading the global fashion industry in using digital to give designers an effective way to increase their exposure. We are now in discussions with a number of other cities to install a similar system for their fashion weeks"

This season demonstrated that live video is now firmly established as an integral part of the London Fashion Week event, bringing the very best of British design talent to a mass online audience around the world.

About Rightster

Rightster is a leading provider of cloud-based software and services that simplify the distribution, marketing and monetisation of live and on demand premium video content. Rightster was founded by Charlie Muirhead (Orchestream plc, Nexagent) and its clients include the British Fashion Council, SNTV (Sports News Television), and ITN Productions. Rightster has a network of over 2,000 publishers worldwide, and partners with best in class ad sales partners and video technology companies.

http://www.rightster.com

About the British Fashion Council

The British Fashion Council (BFC) was set up in 1983 to promote British fashion internationally and co-ordinate this promotion through fashion weeks, exhibitions and showcasing events. The BFC now supports designers beginning at college level and extending to talent identification, business support and showcasing schemes to help British designer businesses develop their profiles and business globally and promote British fashion and its influential role in Creative Britain and Creative London. The BFC Colleges Council offers support to students through its MA Scholarship, links with industry through Design Competitions and Graduate Preview Day. Talent identification and business support schemes include the BFC/Elle Talent Launch Pad; BFC Fash/On Film sponsored by River Island; BFC Rock Vault sponsored by International Palladium Board; BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund; Estethica; Fashion Forward; NEWGEN sponsored by Topshop and NEWGEN MEN sponsored by Topman. Showcasing initiatives include London Fashion Week, LONDON showROOMS and the BFC/Bazaar Fashion Arts Foundation and the annual celebration of excellence in the fashion industry: the British Fashion Awards.

About InDigital Media

The InDigital Media Group was formed to deliver comprehensive film and photography production services to luxury brands and the fashion industry. A decade of experience covering global fashion events has seen the group expand its operations worldwide with offices now in New York, London, Amsterdam, Milan and Sydney. Creating a global footprint which covers all key and emerging fashion markets. InDigital has built one of the leading and most extensive production resources in the industry by providing quality content to the world's major brands, publication houses and broadcast syndicators.

SOURCE Rightster