Seven blames global demand for Olympic App failure

How could they have not foreseen any issues like this? Poor planning on Seven’s behalf.

Downloaded it and the experience has been pretty average to say the least. All pre-roll ads were playing up and not serving correctly, pausing mid way and nothing happening after that. Bit of a mission to even get to actual content, then more ads from the dirty feed on TV. Interested to see the completion rates on some of those campaigns.

So Google would be a better choice for a streaming partner next time guys.

It’s obvious Seven, you haven’t done your research into a reliable tech partner.

I don’t accept Seven had no idea they were going to get so many requests for content plays.

This is a 65 year old media company dedicated to video and ad tech. and a veteran of Olympic broadcasts.
This makes you look like a Not-For-Profit broadcaster… not one with resources to invest in commercial research and development.

Put it this way…. It’s like Apple saying their servers crashed because they didn’t know their app store was going to get so many download requests for broadcaster apps over the Olympics.

Cut the BS Seven…

BS. Seven is pointing the finger at the OBS and elsewhere, but the reality was that streams across 7 apps including Plus7, 7 Tennis (across Smartphone and Apple TV) – as well as the Olympic app – were all down during the crucial gold medal swimming moments.

How do they explain the native 7/7mate/7two streams going down across all their apps as well? Isn’t this handled directly by Seven’s infrastructure in Australia? Not good enough.

Regardless, they’ll claim it as a roaring success. You watch… oh wait, you can’t, it’s broken.

Stick to what you’re good at SWM – mobile ain’t it. How could you not plan and test again and again and again in the lead up to the Games? Why wouldn’t you have launched the app a week prior to the OC and quickly determine that you have major architecture problems. Additionally, I’m calling bullshit on the quoted 2.8m streams. That will be a ‘server request number’ not the successfully started number of streams. Give the issues you have had over the weekend that 2.8m is more likely <1m successful streams (and that may be a generous estimate).

I too gave up on this app completely after watching three ads and it crashing.
I found the most sensible thing to do was to use my foxtel remote to add channels 107(7) 207(7hd) 137(7two) and 188(7 mate) to favourites then you can just cycle through them. 7mate has the most watchable and varied content, 7HD and 7 you’ll just get an hour of gushing interviews after a gold medal and it’s a complete waste of time.

I’ve been using the 7 app all morning at work today and it’s performed well. Clear picture, no stuttering, no problems getting the streams to load.

One thing to note about Telstra offering the app for free to their customers… they don’t mention that it is limited to one device. I can watch it fine from my Telstra mobile but when I try to login to the 7 App on my iPad using my Telstra ID, it tells me I can’t because I’ve already activated one device for this service.

A big disappoinment 🙁

Once again a poor performance by Seven, it’s not just the appalling app performance. Where are the highlights, not just the ones Australia features in, a wider range of sports, inane commentary, too many ads, etc.

Please can Seven learn from the other countries on how to deliver better access to multiple Olympic sports i.e red button technology to allow you to choose what you watch, not just in app. The UK/US have been doing it for years so I still don’t understand why Australia is so far behind as it makes overall consumer experience better.

Typical Seven however, only concerned about the ad dollars.

Not even a podium finish for Seven, you haven’t even made it thorugh the opening heats. You’ve let your country down

There’s always excuses after the fact.
It’s the Olympics, it was always going to be huge – just deliver a product that can handle the expectation.
On another matter – how about Seven having an EPG so viewers know exactly events will be on which channel and at what time.
It’s just hit and miss trying to work out what events are on, when and where.
Clunky and should be better.

The excuses are totally untrue – the app is poorly built, rushed and unfit for purpose.
Perhaps their digital head should spend some time actually worrying about the business he works for and the products he’s in charge of, rather than endless self-promotional media opportunities.

How is this an international problem? I live in the UK and the BBC’s live-streamed coverage has been great — it tells you when all sports are playing and as far as I can see — let’s you stream anyone of them.

No bugs / hiccups in the feed on their end — and they’re a public broadcaster.

You’d think a broadcaster with money to make out of this coverage would have their shit together.

Typical Australian business reaction to the Internet — come on guys stop acting like you’re 10 years behind everyone else.

Best way to watch is through the BBC iplayer using a VPN and it’s streamed in glorious HD not the SD crap that’s dished out to us and it works perfectly.

Does anyone know which streaming CDN platform seven are using? Is it Akamai?

so Telstra is shifting all blame to Seven. Seven is blaming the Olympic Broadcasting Service and Akamai. (and implicitly blaming users for all trying to watch coverage at the same time aka “unprecedented demand”. Er, that would be the definition of “live” as in “Live Coverage”). Funny how before the Olympics, 7 was taking all the credit for developing an app which they spruiked far and wide as some sort of innovation breakthrough and an Australian FIrst. Now that it’s failing miserably, it’s somehow nothing to do with them…..to the point where they are now quoted as saying although the app features its branding it is actually provided by Olympic Broadcasting Services and its affiliates

WORST Olympic coverage in history, both on TV and the HORRID app. I hope 7 never gets to broadcast the games again.

Poor user interface design and performance. Clunky, old fashioned, information poor and sloooowwww.
That would be tolerable if the video playback was up to any sort of reasonable expectations. Should have used YouTube if they cannot cobble together a workable and scalable alternative.

Btw, I wonder if the advertisers who are missing out on frustrated viewers are happy with what they have paid seven for.

Dark times for SWM. They’ve tried to roll their own in light of the upcoming Yahoo!7 split and failed miserably. Instead of hiring a marketer as their “Digital guru”, I’d suggest hiring a technologist with proven large scale consumer tech experience is in order pronto.

This is Telstra Premium service and quality of streaming from Channel 7. What a waste.

Going after channel 7 is the wrong target for this stuff up. The content distribution platform – Akamai – has really fluffed this. The content is produced by 7 and is then sent to the Akamai network for distribution – none of the content on the app is served directly by a 7 server. 7 should have partnered with google.

Yep agree with .Peter here it’s not 7’s infrastructure at fault. However, you would think that the company that is pulling this together, to be then distributed to local broadcasters, should have been prepared for mass-usage.

I’ve pretty much had it with Seven’s streaming shambles. The Aus Open app was built up to be the best thing since Netflix when in reality it was just a simulcast of tv, coupled with semi-produced streams of outside courts. No innovation or made for digital elements. Essentially it was a poor person’s vers of what BBC did for Wimbledon ten years ago, but at a much lower spec and full of bugs.
Surely they should sell on their digital rights or partner with a sports broadcaster like Fox or ESPN or someone who actually gets sport, rather than muddle through it themselves?
I get it that they need to diversify from linear TV on one hand, but on the other hand they just don’t seem to get digital streaming products, and from Aus Open to Olympics, they have gone backwards. Tough one, but they clearly don’t have digital product expertise in-house

These last 3 Summer Olympics have all had absolutely garbage coverage. All with no, or very poor timetables on when and where to watch particular events, constant cutaways to repeats of interviews or past highlights, terrible segments of the hosts sitting on a couch filling time, terrible apps, and No Roy & HG.

If the IOC were really clever, they would start their own direct streaming service and cut out the bloated, greedy, out of touch middlemen that are our FTA providers.

I agree. If a traditional media broadcaster is going to attempt to offer a stream or an app, then partner with Google. They could set up commercial Olympic channels on YouTube and then share the revenue dollars with Google. Win, win, win.

I would actually prefer The ABC or SBS to get the 2020 Olympics and take this approach. The viewing experience would be tremendous. Sevens one sided commentary is embarrassing. ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie…’. The BBC in the UK is tremendous and has far less bias in their coverage.

Blame it to who you want but such failure has been caused by both t and seven managements equally. It is the type of failure that happens when profit becomes the sole and only goal. This is the most incompetent way to manage a company’s business and therefore whoever has approved or given the final go, perhaps may be better off to do the streaming from its own home, than from its office…. The scariest is that all the people involved in this project, all of them have overlooked a detail that of small, has the cases, only. Seems time to refresh both top ends….

Cannot get on to the app at all today – have paid for the premium coverage, should I be refunded??? The App is not worth it. Missing so much Olympics.

If it’s the fault of global demand I don’t see why it works perfectly fine on a laptop and furthermore I don’t understand how an overloaded server would crash the entire app rather than just affect the stream

Agreed. The biased coverage is embarrassing. Are there any other countries in Rio????

The ads stream perfectly. The real content freezes 9 times out of 10.
I paid $20 for this? Think we’re all owed refunds

The channel seven Rio2016 app is appalling. It is slow and clunky.

I thought it must be a joke, when I paid my $20 for premium content thinking it would unlock an archive of whatever I wanted to watch from the olympics… It’s just what they want to broadcast. It’s TV over the Internet. Big deal.

And now it just doesn’t work. Not funny that an ad plays before saying there is no content available. What the? That is pure disrespect for your customers.

And the last straw – try sending a message to channel seven. Their feedback site doesn’t seem to be working either. Expect no less than a refund.

https://support.seven.com.au/olympics/contact

How could it be global traffic? Wouldn’t the Seven coverage be region locked?

27 seconds to goon the basketball and you switch to the women’s golf!!!!!! Idiots complete idiots

So disappointed in this app. Agree that their global streaming demand excuse is a load of bs. I don’t care about the $20. I just want to be able to watch the olympics. The app could have been great, it’s just that the content is literally unwatchable. I’m
mirroring my iPhone to my tv and the feed skips and jumps all over the place. This has ruined the Olympics for me.