Fans sat down Sunday night prepared to observe a dwell Love is Blind reunion and study whether or not or not season favorites Tiffany and Brett are actually “forever,” as Netflix’s personal Twitter bio proclaimed. But the streaming big buckled throughout its large second, unable to ship the drama in actual time to its viewers. After about 90 minutes, Netflix referred to as it quits, opting as a substitute to tape the reunion and release it Monday afternoon. 

“To everyone who stayed up late, woke up early, gave up their Sunday afternoon … we are incredibly sorry that the Love is Blind Live Reunion did not turn out as we had planned,” Netflix stated in a tweet. “We’re filming it now and we’ll have it on Netflix as soon as humanly possible. Again, thank you and sorry.” Netflix didn’t reply to a request for touch upon what precipitated its livestreaming difficulties. 

Netflix disrupted TV—which had a reasonably good factor going when it got here to dwell broadcasts—solely to not too long ago carry it again, introducing its subscribers to a dwell Chris Rock stand-up special in March. The transfer into dwell content material is broadly seen as a push to assist Netflix differentiate itself in a aggressive area of video streamers, significantly because the community has taken unpopular steps to construct income by vowing to cut back on password sharing. But dwell programming on streaming is harder than in broadcasting, and Netflix is way from the primary streamer to fall sufferer to the technical hurdles—particularly in terms of in-demand content material. 

“You can say it’s so popular that it’s failure by success,” says John Kendall, a media supply analyst at consulting agency Omdia. Highly anticipated content material like successful reunion present, closely marketed by Netflix, is what the community wants to face out. But the snafu might have been attributable to too many individuals attempting to entry this system. “Netflix has just encountered this problem, but they are not the first, nor will they be the last,” Kendall says. 

While broadcast TV makes dwell tv look easy, streamers fall behind as a result of they use a distinct approach. Broadcasting sends a sign from one to many. Think of this as the normal TV or radio sign going out, after which many individuals tuning in by flipping on a TV and deciding on the channel. But streaming is a collection of unicasts—sending a sign to a single gadget on demand. That creates extra alternative for issues to go incorrect, both within the creation of the content material, its transmission to servers, or supply to customers, says Kendall. More individuals watching means extra bandwidth is required. And if streamers under-anticipate demand, they’ll encounter issues. 

Netflix particularly faces challenges right here, Kendall says, as a result of it has just one solution to distribute its content material: by means of a Netflix app on a TV, laptop, telephone, or pill. Competitors like HBO have individuals who tune in by way of apps but additionally those that use HBO by means of their cable subscriptions, which diversifies how the channel can distribute content material at busy instances.