Not only that, the classical music competition's most popular video online — Yunchan Lim's performance of Rachmaninov's 3rd Piano Concerto with Marin Aslop and the Fort Worth Symphony — reached 7 million viewers alone. That had it trending in YouTube's top 24 videos.
Worldwide.
The Cliburn released its figures last week. The classical website,ludwig-van.com, put those numbers in comparison with the premieres of popular streaming entertainments: "Game of Thrones" — 2.22 million views. "The Walking Dead" — 5.35 million views.
The Cliburn has cultivated an international audience — especially in Asia — since 2001 when it presented the first classical music competition broadcast live. Since then, it's developed a significant online presence with sophisticated performance videos: webcasts, interviews, social media.
Even so, the 16th edition of the Cliburn, June 2-18 earlier this year, reached a record-breaking audience in 177 countries. The audience was 50 times the size for 2013's contest. Cliburn's subscription numbers quintupled to 100,000.
Got a tip? Email Jerome Weeks at jweeks@kera.org. You can follow him on Twitter @dazeandweex.
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