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.

Michael Colbert, President and Executive Producer, Capital Concerts, said that by broadcasting the event over OTT, in addition to the live broadcast on PBS, the program was viewed by millions around the world including troops stationed internationally.

“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 37^th 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.

The Switch currently provides 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).