Due to a massive Tuesday night that included opening night of the NBA season and Game 4 of the NLCS, YouTube crashed and remained unavailable for over 40 minutes for YouTube TV subscribers and non-subscribers just wanting to go on YouTube for various videos. Things got a bit awkward for YouTube during this outage because the site went down while they were sponsoring the NLCS.
Friday night, YouTube TV subscribers received an email from Google about Tuesday’s outage where the company apologized and said they would give subscribers a free week of service.
A similar outage occurred during the FIFA World Cup this past July where subscribers weren’t able to watch the Croatia-England semifinal. Subscribers got a free week of service for that as well but there is one important difference the company did then that they aren’t doing now. Back in July, the free week of service was given to every subscriber without them having to do anything. This time, subscribers must fill out a form before Tuesday to receive the free week of service.
It sucks that YouTube TV went down, especially during a peak time that most subscribers are watching, but they can’t go back in time so an apology and a free week is the next best thing. Since this has happened twice in three months during a busy time, maybe Google should look at what’s causing this and devising a system that makes sure the site remains running but all cable/satellite/streaming services have technical difficulties from time to time. And YouTube TV giving a free week of service is more than what certain other companies do when a gust of wind or steady rain causes their service to stop. Take a hint, DirecTV.
