Don't think a few hundred Freepers could've brought the stream down.
BTW: I use USTREAM for some of my amateur radio activities as I broadcast online when I'm on air. It lets my foreign contacts see me and hear their signal back over the net. USTREAM is a great service.
Last night, we started listening when there were around 20,000 on the live stream. Within minutes, that number was up to 30,000. And it kept going from there.