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Charlie Sheen Helps Make a Name for Ustream

His last job was on a network sitcom that drew 15 million viewers a week. Now Charlie Sheen, fallen television star, delivers nonsensical, expletive-laced rants before an audience of roughly three million on a live video-streaming Web site called Ustream, whose most prominent claim to fame was showing the early lives of six Japanese hunting dogs.

Sheen’s Korner” — tagline: “You’re either in Sheen’s Korner or you’re with the trolls” — has elevated Ustream into the pop consciousness for a second time. The idea for the site came from John Ham and Brad Hunstable, who met while attending West Point and were looking to create a service that would enable those serving in the Iraq war to see and hear their families back home. It was introduced in March 2007.

“We created Ustream with a vision of giving anyone, anywhere, with a camera and an Internet connection, a platform to talk to their audience live, whether it’s friends, family or fans,” Mr. Ham, its chief executive, said in an e-mail.

As with YouTube, Ustream users can create their own channel, but unlike YouTube, the only option on Ustream is live streaming, making it more like a live-to-tape version of Skype. There is no editing or possibility of retakes, making it a curious forum for the unpredictable Mr. Sheen, whose logorrhea in recent weeks has included some damaging rants.

The service reached worldwide fame a year and a half after it started, when a San Francisco couple trained a camera on their six Shiba Inu foster puppies so that they could monitor the dogs while at work. Within a month, the Shiba Inu Puppy Cam had drawn three million visitors, serving as a cuddly distraction from a contentious presidential election. A second litter of puppies drew more than 26 million total views, making it the most-watched continuous live stream on the site.

“The puppy cam really put it on the map, but there have been a number of different broadcasts that really put it on the map as well,” Lynn Fox, the company’s vice president for marketing and communications, said. “Like the Obama inauguration. Michael Jackson’s funeral. Recently we had the Chilean miner rescue,” which attracted 5.3 million views over two days.

Ustream, a privately held company, makes money from advertising, production services and some premium content like pay-per-view. Movie studios have approached Ustream to broadcast red carpet movie premieres, in part, Ms. Fox said, because the company follows copyright laws. The site has also hosted live sporting events like boxing and rugby, and news footage is shown live, like the horrific images of the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on Friday.

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Charlie Sheen’s show made its debut on March 5 on Ustream. A few days later he used the show to give his first on-camera response to his firing from “Two and a Half Men.”Credit...Ustream.TV

“Ustream is much bigger than a few days with Charlie Sheen,” Ms. Fox said. But Mr. Sheen is a clear ratings winner. “Sheen’s Korner came upon us really, really quickly,” said Ms. Fox. “It was an opportunity grabbed very nimbly by one of the guys in our content group.”

That person was Jason Kirk, and as he watched Mr. Sheen’s public rants, he saw an opportunity. Mr. Kirk heard Mr. Sheen say he would like to do live streaming and reached out to the actor on Twitter. Less than 12 hours later, “the whole world knew that Charlie Sheen was going on Ustream,” Ms. Fox said.

Mr. Sheen directed his own production company, WyTV, to set up the channel; Ustream just advised. The live and interactive nature of the site meant that viewers could comment on Mr. Sheen’s performance in real time, and that he could immediately respond.

The show made its debut on March 5, and a few days later Mr. Sheen used the show to give his first on-camera response to his firing from “Two and a Half Men.” He has produced four videos so far, each littered with the bizarre, rapid-fire utterances he has become known for, like referring to himself as “the Malibu Messiah” with “Adonis DNA” and weaving in warlocks, tiger blood and rock-star Vatican assassins.

A call to Marty Singer, Mr. Sheen’s lawyer, was not returned, and attempts to reach his management were unsuccessful.

For its part, Ustream does not mind Mr. Sheen’s negative image, as long as he doesn’t violate the site’s terms of service. So far, he has not.

The second episode of “Sheen’s Korner,” “Torpedoes of Truth,” opens with Mr. Sheen in midphone call with his friend Bob Maron, who warns, “Don’t give them too much. Keep the mystery. Keep a little bit of smoke and mirrors between you and the people so that you’re not overexposing yourself.”

It is advice Mr. Sheen does not seem to be heeding.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: Sheen Helps Make a Name for Ustream. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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