‘We’re really sorry for the recent YouTube TV outage during the FIFA World Cup Semifinal,’ the company wrote in an email to subscribers. ‘To make this right, we’d like to give you a free week of service.’
As many seriously perturbed YouTube TV users are well aware, the $40-a-month streaming TV service recently went down for nearly an hour at a seriously inopportune time: during the World Cup semifinals between England and Croatia.
Now, as a peace offering, YouTube is offering subscribers a free week of service.
…and this is why I think @YouTubeTV is worth the money. Not happy with the outage, happy with the response. pic.twitter.com/C5twwAAhMD
“We’re really sorry for the recent YouTube TV outage during the FIFA World Cup Semifinal,” the company wrote in an email to subscribers. “To make this right, we’d like to give you a free week of service.” The company did not specify in that letter why the outage occurred.
YouTube plans to send subscribers a second email once the credit hits their account, so be on the lookout for that.
The outage began on Wednesday around 3 p.m. ET, halfway into the England vs. Croatia matchup.
“Hey everyone — sincere apologies for streaming issues with YouTube TV. The timing is horrible but we’re working to be up and running again ASAP!” YouTube TV tweeted at the time. Fifty-eight minutes later, YouTube TV posted that the service was back up and running.
It wasn’t the first YouTube TV outage during a major sporting event. In May, the service went down during the NBA Eastern Conference Finals.
YouTube TV earned a “good” rating in PCMag’s April 2017 review; we said it offers “several compelling features” like an unlimited cloud DVR but noted it was missing several major cable channels at launch, including Cartoon Network, TBS, and TNT. YouTube added those three channels, and a few others, to its TV lineup this February, but hiked the price of the service from $35 to $40 a month for new members.
