Seven admits Olympics app issues impacted streaming figures
Seven Network has admitted the issues which plagued its Olympics app in the first few days had an impact on the number of streams and minutes streamed.
According to Seven, the app – which was plagued with problems, with users reporting it was freezing and crashing, preventing them from viewing the Games – has been downloaded 750,000 times, with seven million streams over the first three days and 45 million minutes of streaming posted.
Speaking with Mumbrella from Rio, Seven West Media chief digital officer, Clive Dickens, reiterated that the app outages had nothing to do with Seven.
To blame a technical partner (Akami) is not good enough! Take responsibility for the faults as the buck stops with you, especially when consumers are being charged for a premium service ($20). And no, I don’t work for a competing TV Network.
Suggesting millions of Australians are “enjoying” it online and on TV is a gross overstatement. The coverage is woeful.
Comparing 2012 to 2016 without acknowledging the audience shift toward digital, the lack of a good digital product last pass and any changes in digital rights between both Olympics is convenient. You could have put any ‘simple’ (as Dickens describes it) digital product in front of audiences and the increases would have been monumental.
Jeez that man can’t half talk.
Ah yes because the app refusing to even start was definitely the fault of Akami and the Olympic Broadcasting Services. I gave up on it in the end. Enjoying infinitely better coverage form the BBC and CBC.
Presumably he’s hoping with his board’s lack of digital smarts he will be able to deflect product issues onto the cdn & anyone else. These are blatant lies, the vast majority of the product issues here sit 100% at Seven’s door. Huge damage to the Seven brand.
A classic case of needing to stand up and say sorry, but it won’t happen.
100% Agree with ‘Concerned’ – Responsibility starts & finishes with 7, and they shouldn’t be shifting the blame to suppliers.
I’m sure the IOC & Akamai wouldn’t be credited for the success of the app if it worked properly…
It would be a fair bet that none of the people commenting have ever worked on an Olympic broadcast and would be totally clueless as to where the problems originate or who is responsible. Doesn’t stop them though, does it?!!
“Normally the internet is a fantastic piece of technology but it’s built for people to be doing different things at different times, it’s not built for everybody doing the same thing at the same time.”
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the quality of thinking of SWM’s leader in digital.
OK – so here’s a comment from someone who HAS worked on this. 7 had the option to build their own app. They decided to go for the out of the box OBS option – which was a ridiculous thing to do. They should be accepting responsibility for the issues and stop passing the buck. The 7Tennis app was plagued with issues – there’s a track record of delivering sub standard digital products.
Best not bet your house on it then
Hmmm … so you’ve worked on the Olympics, say that 7 was “ridiculous” for taking the OBS option, but their own app was “plagued with issues” so presumably that wasn’t an option. You’re a bit confused aren’t you.
Dickens talks and talks. He was known for it here at SCA before being found out and quickly moving on. Stop self promoting and start delivering
i like the game
Accountability starts at the top. As much as I feel for these guys and as much as we were encouraged to be innovative, you can’t pull a gold bar from the ass of a donkey (despite of what people say). There was a degree of bullying in the team that involved favouritism, dangerous assumptions and egotistical people and no focus whatsoever on delivery of a quality product. I worked there too, I have no animosity against them, but I do think that after reading this article that the buck should stop with 7.