Seven and Yahoo7 smashed records with its first run, as Live streaming on PLUS7 officially launched for Melbourne Cup.

Seven’s live coverage of the race reached 4.4 million people, with a combined metro and regional average of 2.984 million viewers, which hit its peak at over 3.1 million.

And in its debut of live streaming on PLUS7, the network reached more than 488,000 Australians who were streaming the coverage across the day, and over 300,000 concurrent streams during the main race.

“Melbourne Cup really is the race that stops the nation – all Australians want to watch the race no matter where they are and now they can, right from their smartphone,” Yahoo7 CEO Ed Harrison said.

“To launch Live streaming on PLUS7 with record breaking numbers demonstrates the demand for this service, and we’re excited to add even more great features as we continue to grow PLUS7.”

Seven’s chief digital officer Clive Dickens agreed, saying that while the network didn’t “break the internet”, it certainly “made TV history”.

In individual TV markets, the audiences were also stand outs, with Melbourne averaging an audience number of 971,000 viewers at race time, peaking at over one million. But despite all the hype, the Melbourne Cup recorded a rather low metro audience given the occasion.

The capital-city audience for the great race was down on last year’s 2.178 million and well down on the 2.66 million viewers who watched Green Moon win the 2012 Melbourne Cup, the 2.704 million for Americain’s 2010 win and the 2.65 million that watched Dunaden’s 2011 win.

Out-of-home viewing that takes place in hotels and offices wasn’t included in the numbers, however, and new measurements for online viewing released next year will no doubt help boost numbers.

“Based on stats on concurrent users and peak traffic, yesterday’s live stream of the Melbourne Cup on Channel 7 was likely the largest online event of its kind in Australia,” Akamai Technologies chief media strategist Asia Pacific David Habben said.

“To put that into perspective, the audience of over 300,000 was more than three times larger than the Australian live stream of the FIFA World Cup, and almost double the peak traffic.”