Many would-be online viewers of the Academy Awards encountered problems Sunday, according to multiple reports. The technical problems were the latest in a series of online-video service issues to surface in recent weeks.
Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC network offered a live stream of the event in eight cities to a handful of its TV Everywhere pay-TV partners, but many of those would-be viewers complained the stream didn't work for long stretches during the event. The network told the Wall Street Journal that traffic overwhelmed a vendor's systems; the company is still gathering information about whether it will have to pay advertisers back for ads that didn't run online during the event.
Aereo subscribers also experienced some problems streaming the event, according to some reports and tweets.
The glitches were the latest in a series of bumps in the road for online video viewers. Last week, when the WWE introduced its over-the-top linear network, new subscribers were turned away for a period of time. And before Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) announced a new peering agreement, some subscribers complained of service issues streaming Netflix over a Comcast Internet connection.
For more:
- The Wall Street Journal had this report
- Adweek had this report
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