ABC's Oscars Streaming Outage Shows Web Limitations for TV Networks

ABC's streaming-video outage during the Academy Awards highlights the technology challenges TV networks are up against as they try to make highly watched live events available online.

A spokeswoman for ABC blamed the outage on a "traffic overload that overwhelmed one of our vendor's systems." ABC didn't answer detailed questions about the duration of the outage, its cause or whether the broadcaster will have to compensate advertisers. The network said it is still gathering such information. The awards event, usually one of the most-viewed TV programs of the year, was a high-profile test for ABC's online distribution strategy. The telecast averaged 43 million viewers, up 6% over last year, according to a Nielsen estimate provided by the network. ABC didn't provide details on the number of streaming users.