DStv: 34,490 — Netflix: 1

Of Netflix’s three attempts to stream events live, only one has succeeded. In contrast, DStv streams thousands of live sporting events and other content every year across dozens of channels with minimal disruptions.

Netflix’s foray into live-streamed events began with Chris Rock’s comedy special Selective Outrage in March last year, which went off with no major technical issues.

Unfortunately, its next two experiments failed dismally.

The streaming platform’s next test after the Chris Rock event was a live reunion episode of dating reality show Love Is Blind. Netflix had promised that viewers would be able to help pick out the questions asked of participants.

It brought the whole platform to its knees. Even viewers who wanted to watch Netflix’s other on-demand content couldn’t access the platform.

Rather than tempering its ambitions, Netflix doubled down with an even bigger event — a professional boxing match between Mike Tyson and former YouTuber Jake Paul.

The stream crashed as the bout was about to start, with viewers complaining worldwide. In South Africa, many complained that the stream appeared to be stuck at buffering on 25%.

After trying to buffer for a while, Netflix would kick viewers to an error message stating that their Internet connection could be the problem.

It would then go through an automated troubleshooting sequence where it would test the Internet connection before attempting to buffer the stream again.

Netflix appeared to resolve some of the problems elsewhere in the world, with many people reporting that they could watch the match — albeit a low-quality or stuttering stream.

In South Africa, however, the stream seemed to be entirely offline for the duration of the fight.

One improvement since its previous live stream attempt was that the issues did not appear to impact the rest of Netflix. People who wanted to watch on-demand content could continue to do so.

Netflix has not explained where the technical failure in its infrastructure occurred or how it was addressing it.

Hours after the event, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that he had seen an internal email to employees from Netflix chief technology officer Elizabeth Stone.

“This unprecedented scale created many technical challenges, which the launch team tackled brilliantly by prioritizing stability of the stream for the majority of viewers,” said Stone.

“I’m sure many of you have seen the chatter in the press and on social media about the quality issues,” she continued.

“We don’t want to dismiss the poor experience of some members and know we have room for improvement but still consider this event a huge success.”

Netflix’s first public statement only came 18 hours after the botched event.

“The boxing mega-event dominated social media, shattered records, and even had our buffering systems on the ropes,” it joked in a Twitter/X post.

Netflix’s failure has raised questions about its readiness to stream two major gridiron football matches on Christmas day after securing a $150-million (R2.7 billion) deal with the US National Football League for them.

Several of Netflix’s rivals have already demonstrated their capabilities in this area.

NBCUniversal-owned Peacock, which is also the technology partner for MultiChoice’s Showmax, held the previous record for the biggest live-streamed event in US history.

It screened an American football game in the US that reached nearly 28 million viewers and accounted for roughly a third of all US internet traffic at the time.

Netflix has reported that the Tyson v Paul fight dwarfed these numbers, reaching 108 million live viewers globally.

It said the event peaked at 65 million concurrent streams, with 38 million concurrent streams in the United States.

Of course, such high numbers are only good if everyone can actually watch the match in decent quality.

And there is something to be said for the number of simultaneous streams a service offers — not just the number of concurrent viewers watching one stream.

For example, YouTube (Google) and Twitch (Amazon) enable tens of thousands of channels to stream live at any given moment.

These streams will regularly have hundreds of thousands of simultaneous viewers, with extremely popular ones peaking in the millions.

South Africa’s own DStv has dozens of channels streaming live, with its SuperSport channels streaming live events daily across the continent.

For its previous full financial year, MultiChoice reported that SuperSport broadcast 34,490 live events between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024.

During the Rugby World Cup, it said DStv Stream recorded 833,000 unique users.

More recently, MultiChoice reported in its half-year results that it had broadcast 10,240 live events. This was 10% higher than the corresponding period the year before.

It also said it offered the most extensive Olympic Games broadcast globally, with 1,200 live events and 13 dedicated channels, five of which were streaming channels.

Although it would be credulous to think that DStv’s streaming platforms never experience glitches, they have proven themselves during major events.

These include the UFC fight between Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya, major English Premier League football matches, and the Springboks playing against the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup final.

Fortunately for Netflix, its past streaming failures have happened during less high-stakes events.

While the Tyson v Paul match was extremely popular — it isn’t American football.

Unfortunately, that also means Netflix hasn’t had a successful event to ensure it can pull it off come Christmas day.

While it isn’t entirely do-or-die for Netflix — it has a three-year contract with the NFL for Christmas-day games — another failure next month could spell disaster for its live sports ambitions.