It seems that more and more people are eschewing television in favour of online content, when it comes to obtaining and providing coverage of important events.

According to the Associated Press, eight million users watched the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States in Washington D.C on Tuesday, via AP’s Online Video Network (OVN).

At its peak, AP claim that as many as 374,000 streams were accessed concurrently.

This is a significant increase from the 80,000 live streams AP recorded during its coverage of the presidential election night in November.

In addition, 160 media outlets subscribed to their premium service, which provided a video widget allowing for multiple viewing angles of the event.

Static media also enjoyed a healthy rise, with AP Images and AP Exchange together recording an 80 per cent peak over regular traffic to their sites during the event.

In total, over 1,400 inaugural images passed through their services from around the globe.

AP were not alone in their online triumph. CNN shattered its own record four-fold, by attracting 136 million views of its website and 21.3 million viewers to its live streaming coverage.

Web users were so busy watching President Obama sworn into office that Google noticed a distinct drop in the number of searches performed during the inaugural address.