The bout between Mike Tyson v Jake Paul proved that Netflix still hasn’t nailed the demands of live streaming.
- Subscribers complained of buffering, error messages and poor picture quality.
- It’s the second live event that Netflix has had troubles with.
- Despite the issues, Netflix says 60 million households did manage to watch the fight.
Netflix, having built its service around an ever-increasing catalogue of on-demand shows, continues to struggle with live streams.
Live coverage of former world champion Mike Tyson entering the ring once more to fight influencer Jake Paul descended into chaos for viewers around the world.
Social media exploded with complaints from subscribers. With high interest in the fight generating a surge of viewers, Netflix was quickly overwhelmed. Many fans were unable to watch it at all because the live stream either buffered frequently or could not be started at all.
Complaints quickly piled up on social networks – often accompanied by screenshots of the error messages displayed. Anyone who saw the fight had to expect repeated sound interruptions or pixelated images.
However, it can’t be ruled out that some viewers may have also had localised connectivity issues, in addition to the issues affecting Netflix in general.
After issuing an apology to affected users, Netflix confirmed over the weekend that “60 million households” had watched the fight.
It’s unclear if this figure includes households who had to give up due to technical issues. The company is expected to provide more details of its viewing figures later in the week.
Second time unlucky
This is now the second time Netflix has had a widespread streaming issue during a live event. Last year, Netflix failed to broadcast a reunion show of its reality show “Love is Blind” live. The attempt to stream the show live was aborted. Netflix later showed it as a recording. At the time, the service apologised jokingly with the words: “Love is… late”.
If the latest experience is to go by, Netflix’s technical team will need to go back to the drawing board before their next major live streaming event.
By: Marc Thornham