Call it a sign of the times: C-SPAN has given up on Real's streaming video format.

A notice on C-SPAN's website says, "Due to lack of demand for the RealVideo format, we will be retiring our links to C-SPAN live video streams in the RealVideo format effective March 1, 2010."

Windows Media and Flash are the two remaining formats supported by C-SPAN. Say whatever you want about Flash, but it certainly beats Windows Media for cross-platform ease-of-use... and the less said about using RealVideo, the better.

While C-SPAN may not be on the cutting edge of technical innovation, the real laggards are government agencies, the only places I have encountered RealVideo over the last year. Before the Julius Genachowski-led FCC mercifully switched to Flash, the FCC broadcast its open meetings on the 'Net in postage-stamp sized RealVideo from a server that could handle a max of 200 users.

Real lives on especially in the dark corners of Congressional committees—the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works still uses it, for instance, but even they have added Flash support as well.

It's a sad fate for a once-proud codec.