Netflix’s (NFLX) live event efforts took a significant hit late Sunday after the company failed to successfully broadcast its “Love is Blind” live reunion special — but the streaming giant now says there’s a reason why.
“We’re really sorry to have disappointed so many people,” Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said on the company’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday.
Peters explained the platform has the fundamental infrastructure to successfully pull off a live event but recently introduced “a bug” following last month’s Chris Rock live special, which messed with the broadcast.
“We just didn’t see this bug in internal testing,” Peters said, noting the update was meant to improve live streaming performance. “We hate it when these things happen, but we’ll learn from it and we’ll get better.”
Thousands of users angrily expressed their frustrations on Twitter after waiting over an hour for the episode to air on Sunday night. The episode was eventually released Monday afternoon. Peters revealed that about 6.5 million viewers tuned in to watch.
“We’ve said we want to use live when it makes sense creatively and helps the content itself,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos added. “A reunion show that’s going to generate news and buzz really does play better live when people can enjoy it together.”
Sarandos hinted there will likely be more live events revolving around unscripted programming and said that although about 90% of viewing for the Chris Rock special happened after the live event aired, “it doesn’t change the fact that it was a big event when it happened live.”
Still, analysts have cautioned that consumers will not easily forgive live event slip-ups, especially when they involve their favorite shows.
“[What happened Sunday night] is definitely not good when a player like Netflix is really trying to boost those subscriber numbers,” Jamie Lumley, sector analyst at Third Bridge Group, told Yahoo Finance Live on Monday. “There’s still some work needed in order to work out exactly how to have a live event be seamless, be effective, and be a good way of drawing viewers in.”
Netflix reported mixed first quarter results on Tuesday, missing Wall Street subscriber estimates while beating analyst expectations on earnings per share.
The stock, which initially fell as much as 12% after the release, saw shares pare losses as investors digested the report — the first since co-CEO and co-founder Reed Hastings stepped down from his leading role at the company.
The results came as investors eagerly awaited updates regarding the company’s recently launched ad-supported tier, in addition to its controversial crackdown on password-sharing.
Netflix, which broadened its crackdown to include countries like Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain, in addition to the test countries of Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, revealed it’s planning “a broad rollout” this current quarter that will include the U.S.
Minimal details were revealed when it came to pricing for extra members, with executives saying it will be on a market-by-market basis.
Alexandra Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @alliecanal8193 and email her at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com
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Source: News