Now TV outage: Thousands of users report issues with sports streaming service

A Now TV outage first reported on Tuesday night was said to have affected subscribers of its paid sports streaming service, with thousands of users still experiencing issues as of Thursday morning.

Now TV, which owns exclusive broadcasting rights for world-class sports leagues such as the Premier League and NBA in Hong Kong, announced on Tuesday morning that its paid streaming service was experiencing issues, adding that it is working to restore the service.

Yet later at night, the broadcaster announced that three Premiere League matches, scheduled for streaming on its paid channels in the early hours of Wednesday, will be streamed on its free-to-air sister channels ViuTV, ViuTVsix, and the now News channel.

On Wednesday morning, Now TV’s sports streaming service was still out of service. In response to furious sports fans who were complaining about the situation on its social media, “We are still working to restore the service" and "We will announce the latest updates” is the broadcaster’s response.

The service outage also saw NBA fans missing out on Luka Doncic’s first matchup as a Lakers against his former team Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday morning - with the game being the most-watched regular-season game in the US this season.

Meanwhile, with the Premier League set to serve up five thrilling fixtures in the early hours of Thursday, sports fans were desperate for some good news. Yet they were again let down by the broadcaster.

Now TV announced on Wednesday night that its services were restored and gradually resuming normal, yet many users reported that they were still unable to watch the games, especially after they stayed up late until 3.30am the next day - the time the games start.

“This is outrageous! I am surely gonna file a complaint with the Consumer Council about this!” One netizen commented on Now TV’s Facebook page.

Some comments on Thursday morning also saw users still complaining about the service outage, after they were unable to catch up with the games with the broadcaster’s "On-Demand” Service during their morning commute.