America Online will license the rights to broadcast Live 8 concerts to a Chinese Internet media company, potentially reaching the world's single largest population, AOL said it would announce on Friday.

A unit of Tencent Holdings Ltd. plans to Webcast the concerts to an estimated 20 million viewers on its Web site for free a few days after the actual concerts take place around the world on July 2.

The Webcasts will be translated into Chinese, AOL said.

AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc. owns the exclusive online rights to the concerts in many regions, including North America, the United Kingdom and China.

Organized by Irish rocker Bob Geldof, Live 8 is a series of concerts held in Philadelphia, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Cornwall, Toronto, South Africa and Tokyo to push world leaders to increase aid to poor African countries.

Kevin Wall, Live 8's executive producer, said in an interview this week that he expects the broadcasts over television, radio and online to reach some 5.9 billion viewers across the globe, making it the largest entertainment broadcast in history.

AOL, the world's largest online service, plans to stream most of the concerts live on July 2. The concerts will also be archived on AOL's Web site.

(CRI.com July 1, 2005)