There’s no elephant in the room at Netflix. During Tuesday’s (April 18) Q1 earnings interview, co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters opened up about what went on during the Love Is Blind Season 4 reunion and their plans to continue with live events moving forward.
On Sunday (April 16), the streamer advertised a live reunion with the latest cast of Love is Blind; however, when viewers went to watch the event, they were met with an error screen for roughly 90 minutes. Throughout the wait, the website and app crashed multiple times. Big names like New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Queer Eye’s Karamo Brown commented on the mishap on social media.
Eventually, the show went on and the reunion aired live for select subscribers and the live audience, and the rest waited until the following day to tune in.
Commenting on the incident, Peters said, “We’re really sorry to disappoint so many people. We didn’t meet the standard that we expect ourselves to serve our members and just be clear from a technical perspective, we’ve got the infrastructure.”
He continued, “We had just a bug that we introduced, actually, when we implemented some changes to try to improve live-streaming performance after the last live broadcast, Chris Rock, in March.”
Peters added that the bug didn’t show up in “internal testing” and it first became visible when they had “multiple systems interacting with each other” and “millions of people” queuing to watch the reunion.
“We hate when these things happen, but we’ll learn from it and will get better. We do have the fundamental infrastructure that we need. The good news is that ultimately 6.5 million viewers watched and enjoyed the show,” Peters concluded.
Sarandos chimed in, stating that Netflix intends to continue broadcasting live events when it makes sense for the platform. “So, a reunion show that’s going to generate news and buzz, it really does play better live when people can join together,” he explained.
He continued, “The Chris Rock standup show played out so well because there was so much anticipation for what he was going to say in that set,” referencing the tension between Chris Rock and Will Smith following the Oscars slap. He added, “When we have the opportunity to do projects like that, we like the fact we have the option to do it.”
Sarandos continued, “As Greg said, we were super disappointed to not be able to come across with the live product for everyone who wanted it on the Love Is Blind reunion. But, we’re super thrilled people love the show. It does point to the kind of love for that brand, and for the growing love for those unscripted brands on Netflix.”
The CEO added that Netflix will continue to broadcast some of these “results-oriented shows” live in the future. Sarandos clarified that live shows generate “a lot of conversation” online, however “about 90% of the viewing” occurs after the broadcast. “But that doesn’t change the fact that it was a big event,” he concluded.
The reunion was Netflix’s second-ever live event and the first-ever within the Love Is Blind franchise. The streamer first tested its live technology with Chris Rock’s Selective Outrage comedy show which premiered in March and became the most-streamed comedy special.
Following the release of the reunion, many people felt disappointed with co-host Vanessa Lachey’s handling of sensitive topics and accused her of having bias towards the male contestants. Additionally, Jackie and Josh – who met in the pods but weren’t originally matched – couldn’t attend the reunion because they received death threats. Instead, they did a prerecorded interview.
The Love Is Blind Season 4 Reunion is currently streaming on Netflix.