Latency while streaming your favorite shows and sports can happen at any time, and during this year’s Super Bowl, viewers on some streaming platforms saw delays ranging from 50 to 60 seconds, according to a new study by Phenix. For the study, Phenix collected 391 data points across 9 streaming sources on multiple devices and compared the delays to OTA and cable/satellite signals.
Verizon 5G SuperStadium, NFL media apps, Peacock, NBCSports app, fuboTV, Yahoo Sports app, YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, and DIRECTV STREAM were the 9 platforms used during the study. Viewers across the same platforms noticed over a minute of lag on all of the aforementioned except Verizon 5G SuperStadium, which clocked in at 0.1 seconds.
Phenix’s CEO, Roy Reichbach, believes those paying for a stream are entitled to see the game as it’s happening on the field:
“Enough is enough! If you are charging users for streaming capabilities, provide an actual real-time stream that every fan can experience at the same time, regardless of what platform or device they are watching the game on. It’s time for streaming platforms to step up and fix the latency issues for nationally televised events – the risk to the bottom line is too large to not make it right.” – Roy Reichbach, Phenix CEO
Latency can create viewing issues because fans aren’t able to engage on social media during the game without the possibility of spoilers. The chart below shows the lag of each service compared to real-time.
