“Love Is Blind:” Netflix Reveals What Went Wrong With Live Date

Two days after the “Love Is Blind” no-live disaster, Netflix revealed that the “technical issues” cited as the reason behind the delay were in some ways self-inflicted.

During Netflix’s first-quarter investor call Tuesday afternoon, co-CEO Greg Peters spoke about the outrage among fans of the popular reality series over a Season 4 reunion special that was scheduled to air on the streamer Sunday night. Starting at 5:00 PM PT/8:00 PM ET, viewers attempting to log in and watch the special were met with an error message, and the majority of fans were ultimately unable to watch for several hours.

During the call, Peters apologized for the issues with the live stream and revealed that the technical issues were caused by a glitch in the company’s live stream technology. According to Peters, the bug was introduced after the company made changes to improve live streaming performance in the weeks following the March 5 premiere of its very first live streaming event, Chris Rock’s comedy special “Selective Outrage.”

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“We are very sorry to have disappointed so many people. We have not lived up to the standards we expect ourselves to serve our members,” Peters said on the call. “And just to be clear, technically we have the infrastructure. We just had one bug that we introduced when we made some changes to improve live streaming performance after the (Chris Rock special).”

“We just didn’t see this bug in internal testing because it only became apparent when we put multiple interacting systems under the load of millions of people trying to watch ‘Love Is Blind,'” Peters continued. “We hate when these things happen, but we learn from it and get better. We have the basic infrastructure we need.”

Peters also said on the call that 6.5 million people watched the meeting since the special aired. Although some (but not all) viewers were able to access the reunion until roughly 7:30pm PT on the day it was originally scheduled to air, Netflix didn’t officially release the special until Monday at 12pm.

Netflix didn’t disclose how the special compared to “Selective Outrage,” which did decently with about 17.79 million hours watched in its first full week of tracking, but Peters’ co-CEO Ted Sarandos said Rock special received 90 percent of the viewership. audience after the live premiere.

The failure of the “Love is Blind” live reunion to actually be live drew significant complaints from Netflix subscribers on social media on Tuesday — in addition to inspiring many others. memes and jokes from competitors. On Sunday, Netflix issued an initial statement via Twitter apologizing but offering no explanation for the delay.

“To everyone who stayed up late, woke up early, gave up their Sunday afternoon… we’re very sorry that the ‘Love is Blind Live Reunion’ didn’t go as planned,” reads the streamer’s official account. he tweeted. “We are shooting it now and it will be on Netflix as soon as possible. Thanks again and sorry.”

Despite the “Love is Blind” live streaming issues, Netflix still plans to produce more live shows, a popular trend among streamers, especially in the form of live sports deals signed by Amazon and Apple TV+. . After streaming the SAG Awards on YouTube this February, Netflix will show the annual awards ceremony on its own app in 2024 – hopefully by then the bugs will be ironed out.

“We said we want to use it live when it makes sense creatively, when it helps the content itself,” Sarandos said on the call. “So a reunion show that generates news and buzz. it really plays better live when people can enjoy it together.”

“Love is Blind,” hosted (barely) by Vanessa and Nick Lachey, follows a different group of characters each season as they date in “pods” that hide each other’s appearances. Each season’s characters go on dates, choose to get engaged to their best match, and then go through the process of getting ready for the wedding after their first in-person meeting and deciding whether to say yes or no on the alter. The fourth season premiered on March 24, and the fifth season has already been ordered.

Tony Maglio contributed to this report.

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