Viewers took to social media Sunday night to complain about live streaming issues while trying to watch the season seven premiere of Game of Thrones on DirecTV Now, as well as HBO Go and the HBO website.
In The Netherlands, cable operator Ziggo was struggling to meet the 9pm Monday, July 17, deadline to put the first episode of GOT 7 online on its on demand platform Ziggo Movies & Series XL. In Moscow, distributor Amedia TV launched the series with a special screening for 350 invited guests at the Mayakovskaya station on the Moscow Metro in the early hours of July 18.
A spokeswoman for HBO told The Hollywood Reporter that HBO Go was experiencing outages in Latin America on Sunday and that the team in the region was working to resolve the problems. But she added that HBO hadn’t seen any widespread outages on HBO Go or HBO Now in the United States. However various US media reported problems for both HBO Go and HBO Now as well as for DirectTV Now OTT streaming services.
Meanwhile, Ziggo in The Netherlands, who hold the exclusive rights to all HBO content in the country, promised fans that the new episode would be ready for on-demand viewing at 9pm Monday, but appeared to be struggling to meet the deadline, resulting in many complaints on social media. By the end of the evening, all Ziggo customers were able to request the episode.
In Moscow, organised jointly by the Amediateka SVOD service and the Moscow Metro, 350 invited guests, both VIPs and Game of Thrones fans, gathered under the domed arches of the stunning Mayakovskaya metro station to watch the opening episode, a first ever underground screening of Game of Thrones.
Amediateka will be showing each new episode of Series 7 at the same time as the rest of the world, every Monday at 4am in Moscow, with a viewer option of Russian dubbing or the original English with Russian subtitles.
“Game of Thrones is a cultural phenomenon across Russia,” said Denis Gorshkov, CEO at Amedia TV. “We are very happy that the Moscow Metro supported our idea and invited us to hold the opening night in this amazing location – it must be the first time Game of Thrones has debuted deep underground.”
