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Every Minute Matters: What Super Bowl Streaming Data Taught Us About Customer Retention

Peter Pezaris
New Relic

This year's Super Bowl drew in viewership of nearly 124 million viewers and made history as the most-watched live broadcast event since the 1969 moon landing. To support this spike in viewership, streaming companies like YouTube TV, Hulu and Paramount+ began preparing their IT infrastructure months in advance to ensure an exceptional viewer experience without outages or major interruptions.


New Relic conducted an omnibus survey of more than 1,000 US adults to understand the importance of a seamless viewing experience and the impact of outages during major streaming events such as the Super Bowl.

Here are three key takeaways from the survey results:

1. Outages Lead to Lost Viewers

With customers paying a monthly fee to stream live events via platforms, it's no surprise they expect an uninterrupted, seamless viewing experience. Viewers want to get the most out of their money while streaming NFL games and other live events and do not hesitate to switch providers due to interruptions during the stream. In fact, 58% of survey respondents said they would switch to a different provider to continue watching live events in case of interruptions, with Gen Z (64%) and millennials (63%) being the most likely to switch streaming services.

2. Every Minute Counts During an Outage

When an outage occurs, quick resolutions are critical for streaming platforms to retain viewers. Successfully broadcasting live events means capturing every second of the action, so an outage on a streaming service means fans could be missing game-changing moments. For streaming service customers, the timer to switch providers begins the second the stream experiences an outage. Nearly half (48%) of survey respondents said they would wait less than 10 minutes before switching providers, with baby boomers being the most likely at 55%, followed by Gen X at 49%.

3. Customers Are Quick to Cancel Subscriptions

Beyond simply switching platforms during a live event, consumers have more streaming services to choose from than ever before, which puts streamers in a tough spot: They know an outage could cause a poor customer experience and, consequently, subscription cancellations. A blip during an event like the Super Bowl could impact the providers' customers and their bottom lines.

The majority (63%) of survey respondents said they would consider canceling a streaming service due to an outage during the Super Bowl or another live event, with millennials being the most likely to cancel at 70%. Moreover, 40% of respondents said they would wait less than 30 minutes to cancel their subscription to a streaming service during an outage.

If this year's record-breaking Super Bowl viewership taught us one thing, it's that every minute matters when streaming high-volume live events. Amid more competition and strong consumer demand for uninterrupted viewing experiences, streaming companies will increasingly have to ensure their applications are well-equipped to seamlessly broadcast major live events such as the Super Bowl, the NCAA's March Madness, or the Olympic Games.

Peter Pezaris is Chief Design and Strategy Officer at New Relic

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Every Minute Matters: What Super Bowl Streaming Data Taught Us About Customer Retention

Peter Pezaris
New Relic

This year's Super Bowl drew in viewership of nearly 124 million viewers and made history as the most-watched live broadcast event since the 1969 moon landing. To support this spike in viewership, streaming companies like YouTube TV, Hulu and Paramount+ began preparing their IT infrastructure months in advance to ensure an exceptional viewer experience without outages or major interruptions.


New Relic conducted an omnibus survey of more than 1,000 US adults to understand the importance of a seamless viewing experience and the impact of outages during major streaming events such as the Super Bowl.

Here are three key takeaways from the survey results:

1. Outages Lead to Lost Viewers

With customers paying a monthly fee to stream live events via platforms, it's no surprise they expect an uninterrupted, seamless viewing experience. Viewers want to get the most out of their money while streaming NFL games and other live events and do not hesitate to switch providers due to interruptions during the stream. In fact, 58% of survey respondents said they would switch to a different provider to continue watching live events in case of interruptions, with Gen Z (64%) and millennials (63%) being the most likely to switch streaming services.

2. Every Minute Counts During an Outage

When an outage occurs, quick resolutions are critical for streaming platforms to retain viewers. Successfully broadcasting live events means capturing every second of the action, so an outage on a streaming service means fans could be missing game-changing moments. For streaming service customers, the timer to switch providers begins the second the stream experiences an outage. Nearly half (48%) of survey respondents said they would wait less than 10 minutes before switching providers, with baby boomers being the most likely at 55%, followed by Gen X at 49%.

3. Customers Are Quick to Cancel Subscriptions

Beyond simply switching platforms during a live event, consumers have more streaming services to choose from than ever before, which puts streamers in a tough spot: They know an outage could cause a poor customer experience and, consequently, subscription cancellations. A blip during an event like the Super Bowl could impact the providers' customers and their bottom lines.

The majority (63%) of survey respondents said they would consider canceling a streaming service due to an outage during the Super Bowl or another live event, with millennials being the most likely to cancel at 70%. Moreover, 40% of respondents said they would wait less than 30 minutes to cancel their subscription to a streaming service during an outage.

If this year's record-breaking Super Bowl viewership taught us one thing, it's that every minute matters when streaming high-volume live events. Amid more competition and strong consumer demand for uninterrupted viewing experiences, streaming companies will increasingly have to ensure their applications are well-equipped to seamlessly broadcast major live events such as the Super Bowl, the NCAA's March Madness, or the Olympic Games.

Peter Pezaris is Chief Design and Strategy Officer at New Relic

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Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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