Cutting the cord: Yahoo Screen's year

Yahoo has just the ticket for music-loving cord cutters.

Its Yahoo Screen hub ( screen.yahoo.com) recently added a Live Nation Channel that plans to stream a live concert every day for the next year.

In case you're not familiar with Live Nation, it's the concert and entertainment promotion giant that operates 148 venues worldwide.

Fans get a chance - for free, in return for watching an occasional ad - to see favorite and new artists and performers expand their reach.

The Dave Matthews Band kicked off the concert series on July 15. Other recent concerts have featured Kiss, Gavin DeGraw, and Echo & the Bunnymen.

This weekend, rock band Pepper appears late Friday night, followed by the Goo Goo Dolls Saturday night, then Taylor Swift (Aug. 18), Yes (Aug. 19), John Legend (Aug. 20), Guided By Voices (Aug. 23) and Justin Timberlake (Aug. 24).

FILE - In this June 6, 2013 file photo, Taylor Swift performs at the 2013 CMA Music Festival in Nashville, Tenn. Swift, Coldplay and One Direction are part of the star-studded lineup for this year's iHeartRadio Music Festival, Clear Channel announced Wednesday, July 23, 2014. (Photo by Wade Payne/Invision/AP, File) ORG XMIT: NY110(Photo: Wade Payne Wade Payne/Invision/AP)

Also on deck in the coming weeks and months (date to be announced): Usher. To check the schedule, go to Yahoo Screen Live.

Other names - big and small - are due to appear on the Live Nation Channel. All this is viewable on your computer, Android and iOS mobile devices, Apple TV, Roku and Xbox 360.

Live Nation's channel joins a Yahoo Screen hub that launched three years ago and serves as a home for many video channels, including those from BuzzFeed, Comedy Central, Saturday Night Live archives, The Onion, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ABC News, GQ and Vanity Fair.

You can log in with your Yahoo username and customize the display, narrowing down the options.

I watched a replay of a recent Gavin DeGraw concert on a big-screen HDTV through the Roku channel. Despite a few points where the playback stuttered for what I assumed were buffering issues, the event looked and sounded very good. The quality and production values were right up there with concerts on pay-per-view or DVD and Blu-ray discs.

Yahoo Screen's new Live Nation channel has a year of live concert performances scheduled. Gavin DeGraw was among the recent performers.(Photo: Yahoo)

I also found superb quality on some of the song performances from Ray LaMontagne and Kiss available on demand from earlier concerts. You'll find clips and rebroadcasts soon after a live broadcast.

Yahoo has an eclectic schedule of artists planned, so it's worth checking out the site if you are a music lover. If you see an artist you like, you can have Yahoo send you a reminder of the gig.

Yahoo Screen looks beyond music, although it has a well-stocked VEVO video channel, too. Earlier this year, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer announced plans for the online company's first original series - at the same time Yahoo made public the Live Nation partnership.

Those series, the sci-fi comedy Other Space and sports comedy Sin City Saints from Smallville and One Tree Hill executive producer Mike Tollin arrive next year. Also scheduled for next year is the return of Community, the cancelled NBC comedy series starring Joel McHale.

Movies are in store, too. Later this fall, there's a pre-theatrical screening of the movie One Chance, about Britain's Got Talent winner Paul Potts.

This Yahoo Screen is a screen you may want to keep an eye on.

Yahoo Screen's new Live Nation channel has a year of live concert performances scheduled.(Photo: Yahoo)

'Cutting the Cord' is a new regular column covering Net TV and ways to get it. If you have suggestions or questions, contact Mike Snider via e-mail. And follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.

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