At 7pm PT/10pm ET on Sunday, people across the United States tried to open HBO Max to tune into the Mare of Easttown finale. Key word being “tried.”
Instead of clicking play on the seventh episode of Kate Winslet’s gritty, rural Pennsylvania crime drama (that quickly became one of HBO’s most popular series over the last few years), subscribers were met with blank, purple screens and error messages. The HBO Max Twitter account acknowledged the issue, as viewers clamored to ask, “Why?!” Unfortunately, this isn’t new to HBO; just ask fans of Game of Thrones or True Detective for their collective “HBO Go is down” memories.
Streams stuttering, buffering, or not working at all isn’t just an HBO problem. Marvel fans ran into this with episodes of WandaVision. Toward the back half of the season, fans would try to open Disney+ at midnight PT or 3am ET only to be greeted by a blank, blue screen. (This isn’t a piece about what time these shows come out. It’s an issue, but we’ll save that for another time.) It happened again during The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s final episodes, too. The issue? A surge in traffic.
There are two sides to this story; one an ongoing issue within a streaming-first world and the other a testament to studios creating captivating stories people want to watch. Both act as a reminder that appointment TV isn’t dead, but it is quite often unreachable.
Streaming services rely on two key components to keep subscribers happy: good content and good technical experiences. Netflix might have Stranger Things, but if the fourth season doesn’t load when it debuts or captions aren’t paced correctly, the actual viewing experience suffers. Up until the streaming revolution began and direct-to-consumer initiatives soared to the forefront of executives’ minds, most entertainment companies didn’t have to worry about this.
Before streaming, networks and studios worked with operators like AT&T to distribute said content. It was the carriers that ensured shows and movies were accessible for cable providers when viewers switched their television sets on. As entertainment companies have moved to creating and distributing their own content, they’re also in charge of ensuring the infrastructure can handle the bandwidth.
It’s why Disney decided to acquire BAMTech when it was gearing up to launch Disney+. BAMTech, which hosted HBO Now and, more importantly, MLB live games, seemed like it could handle stress situations like large swaths of people streaming a game.
Competitors scoffed at Disney’s purchase (former CBS chief Leslie Moonves touted their team for building Showtime and CBS All Access internally, telling a Goldman Sachs conference in 2017 that they didn’t “spend a zillion dollars on a BamTech” as reported by Deadline), but Disney executives knew beloved content. They didn’t know tech.
“It’s thousands and thousands of different applications we need to build to support that entire ecosystem,” Michael Paull, former BamTech CEO and current president of Disney+ and ESPN+, told the New York Times in 2017 while talking about how complicated it can be. “That’s one of the big, big barriers to entry if you want to have a scaled digital video service.”
There’s a reason that for the longest time Netflix referred to itself as both a tech and entertainment company — with headquarters in both Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Netflix has its own content delivery network (CDN) called OpenNetwork, which was launched in 2011 because of concerns that third-parties couldn’t keep up with demand.
Here’s a great breakdown from IGP Media Lab showcasing how thinking this far ahead, creating and maintaining its own distribution network while relying on Amazon Web Services, has benefited Netflix.
Or, tl;dr — Netflix tries to ensure the best loading and streaming experience for its subscribers who are seeking out content on Netflix.
The streaming war reality is that companies are constantly fighting for attention. Creative and executive teams want to make the next appointment TV show. They want a Mare of Easttown, a WandaVision, a Stranger Things, a Falcon and the Winter Soldier, a Game of Thrones and, in less than 10 days, a Loki. These are shows that people will stream the second they hit because they’re so excited to see what happens next.
If people can’t actually stream, however, they’ll turn elsewhere. Anecdotally, I couldn’t stream Mare of Easttown on Sunday so I switched over to Apple TV+ to watch the new Mythic Quest I had to catch up on. Again, this isn’t an HBO Max issue. Nor is it a Disney+ issue. It is, however, a streaming issue. We’re consuming more television and movies than ever before, and while media companies might not have thought about how viewers seamlessly watched things 20 years ago, it’s a question that should be at the forefront of their minds now.
Even if it’s not, Twitter will ensure executives are made aware.
