The Cord Cutting Winners & Losers During the “Game of Thrones” Premiere

Last night HBO’s hit show “Game of Thrones” had its season premiere. It is widely considered one of only a few hit shows people absolutely must watch live. As you would expect, this has put a huge strain on streaming services maybe second only to a “Walking Dead” premiere.

So let’s take a look at who won and who lost last night during the “Game of Thrones” premiere.

The Losers

Well maybe it is no surprise, but HBO NOW and HBO GO both had a rough go of it. They both use the same back end and not only did they have cord cutters using it but cable subscribers also. While some said it worked well for them, the majority of our reports say HBO NOW and HBO GO struggled through the launch of “Game of Thrones.” Well for some they stayed up for others the services crashed.

DIRECTV NOW also seemed to struggle, but we are not sure it was just because of “Game of Thrones.” While some areas of the United States reported smooth streaming on DIRECTV NOW yesterday, others reported widespread issues well before and after the “Game of Thrones” premiere.

The Winners

The real winners yesterday seem to be Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, and Hulu. They all seemed to have smooth streaming with no unusual issues during the premiere. This is likely due to many reasons, but in the end when others went down these three services held strong and kept streaming.

One thing to remember here is Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, and Hulu are all older streaming services that had more time to beef up their networks for an event like this. That likely helped them stay ahead of any possible issues that may have come up.

With that said now that HBO and DIRECTV NOW have seen the demand, you should expect them to beef up their streaming services so these issues won’t happen again. I wouldn’t worry if you are a subscriber unless this is still happening a week or two from now.

So how was your streaming of “Game of Thrones?” Any issues I didn’t report here? Leave us a comment and let us know.

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