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French telecommunications company SFR has been forced to issue an apology over issues affecting the RMC Sport over-the-top (OTT) service during its Uefa Champions League broadcasts on Tuesday night.
The Altice France subsidiary issued a Twitter statement on Tuesday night apologising for a fault which saw online viewers watching Liverpool vs PSG and Monaco vs Atletico Madrid suffer lagging issues and outright non-service. It followed initial problems with the streaming service that emerged during the broadcast of Manchester City’s Premier League win over Fulham last weekend.
The fault was blamed on a surge in customer numbers in the week leading up to the start of the Champions League's group stage. According to Altice it had 200,000 new sign-ups to the RMC Sport OTT offering in the last few days and its servers were unable to manage the increased workload.
SFR took over the Champions League rights after winning the contract in May 2017, paying €1.1 billion to beat pay-TV Canal Plus and Qatari-controlled BeIN Sports to the French contract until 2021. Back in May, SFR unveiled its revamped RMC Sport offering including five channels and a digital only package – it is subscribers to the latter who were affected by Tuesday night’s technical issues.
Alain Weill, Altice-Europe chief executive, said on BFMTV on Wednesday morning: “It should not happen, it's a frustration for us and it's even more so for our subscribers.
“The servers fell in part during the match, then came back. We are working on how we will increase the number of servers available.
“Our partners and service providers also had difficulties. Our service provider who paid for the subscription fell for 40 minutes [on Tuesday] and we lost a lot of viewers. All the technical teams are working because we have a new match [on Wednesday].
“The digital universe is growing every day but is still unstable in streaming TV. We have to offer a very high-quality experience because the subscriber wants value for money, which is quite normal.
“[Thursday], we have Marseille (against Frankfurt in the Europa League) with banned stadium supporters so we must be perfect.”
Canal+ Group signed a commercial agreement with SFR for the distribution of the RMC Sport bouquet ahead of the first round of Champions League group games. Its satellite platform and viewers watching the games via an SFR box were not impacted.
Customers impacted by the fault will receive a refund for one month of their subscription.
French telecommunications company SFR has been forced to issue an apology over issues affecting the RMC Sport over-the-top (OTT) service during its Uefa Champions League broadcasts on Tuesday night.
The Altice France subsidiary issued a Twitter statement on Tuesday night apologising for a fault which saw online viewers watching Liverpool vs PSG and Monaco vs Atletico Madrid suffer lagging issues and outright non-service. It followed initial problems with the streaming service that emerged during the broadcast of Manchester City’s Premier League win over Fulham last weekend.
The fault was blamed on a surge in customer numbers in the week leading up to the start of the Champions League's group stage. According to Altice it had 200,000 new sign-ups to the RMC Sport OTT offering in the last few days and its servers were unable to manage the increased workload.
SFR took over the Champions League rights after winning the contract in May 2017, paying €1.1 billion to beat pay-TV Canal Plus and Qatari-controlled BeIN Sports to the French contract until 2021. Back in May, SFR unveiled its revamped RMC Sport offering including five channels and a digital only package – it is subscribers to the latter who were affected by Tuesday night’s technical issues.
Alain Weill, Altice-Europe chief executive, said on BFMTV on Wednesday morning: “It should not happen, it's a frustration for us and it's even more so for our subscribers.
“The servers fell in part during the match, then came back. We are working on how we will increase the number of servers available.
“Our partners and service providers also had difficulties. Our service provider who paid for the subscription fell for 40 minutes [on Tuesday] and we lost a lot of viewers. All the technical teams are working because we have a new match [on Wednesday].
“The digital universe is growing every day but is still unstable in streaming TV. We have to offer a very high-quality experience because the subscriber wants value for money, which is quite normal.
“[Thursday], we have Marseille (against Frankfurt in the Europa League) with banned stadium supporters so we must be perfect.”
Canal+ Group signed a commercial agreement with SFR for the distribution of the RMC Sport bouquet ahead of the first round of Champions League group games. Its satellite platform and viewers watching the games via an SFR box were not impacted.
Customers impacted by the fault will receive a refund for one month of their subscription.
