The Blurring of Shared Experiences Via Streaming
There was a lot of discussion about several big, shared streaming experiences at the end of 2024, from the Tyson-Paul “fight” to the Christmas Beyoncé concert, the New Year’s Eve ball drop in NYC, and more. The result was... different experiences for many different viewers. Gone are the days when tens of millions tuned in to a broadcast TV program and they all saw the same thing at the same time.
I saw several social media posts about streaming a New Year’s program but hearing other people celebrating the moment earlier, or later than themselves. This, despite watches and phones synchronized with cell towers. The shared experience of enjoying a program that’s happening at (or very near) the same time as reality is gone. YouTube, Facebook, et al. are typically 20 or more seconds behind when the event happened. Streaming services and apps can have their own pathways and delays. Add more viewers or more processing, and it can get longer.
However, delays in transmission are nothing new. Go back to the Super Bowl, say 20 years ago. The truck feed at the stadium was sent up to a satellite that was received in the main control room in NYC. I know this for a fact because I was watching the truck feed on Galaxy 11 from the broadcast TV station I was working at, so when the truck went to commercial, they played the outro music and then that shot continued with natural sound and nothing else. The network added commercials that I didn't see. I watched 3 minutes of various b-roll shots before the theme music kicked back in with a wide shot of the stadium, and the show resumed. It was surreal.
The network broadcast with commercials was sent back up to a satellite to be received by network stations nationwide and broadcast out to the public. The received broadcast would be 20 seconds or more behind the event in the stadium itself. Despite all that, every viewer on every screen across the nation was probably within about 1 second of every other viewer because the process of delivery was the same across the board. Everyone celebrated the last-second field goal at the same time.
Today, however, OTT streaming delivers a different experience, and timing, for every viewer. There's no way to sync video streaming playback like there is with digital HD radio delivery (which is synced with the simultaneous analog broadcast). Viewers watching different TVs in different rooms will see the same moment of the broadcast at different times, even if they’re watching the same stream from the same provider. This can blur the “shared experience” aspect of big events. Imagine different people in the same cinema seeing the moment Captain America picks up Thor’s hammer 5, 10, 20 seconds before or after others?
This is just the way things work today—so much so that videos, reviews, social media posts are made with “spoiler alerts” for those who haven’t yet had the opportunity to experience the show without knowing the big thing that happens within.
When people are experiencing streamed events in their own spaces, separate from others, this is not as important a factor. But with today’s shared second screens, chat, etc., even that is becoming less and less the case. We expect everyone to experience these moments together, but that expectation is becoming increasingly unrealistic. Add in people who might pause the stream for a bio-break, buffering, whatever, and others—or you—can fall minutes behind in the broadcast you’re live-texting about.
OMG did you see that?
No. It hasn’t happened for me yet.
Aren’t you watching live?
It’s complicated.
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