CHANNEL Seven has defended itself in the face of criticism from Olympic enthusiasts who have slammed the broadcaster’s app for robbing them of an enjoyable viewing experience when tuning in to the Winter Games in PyeongChang.
Viewers have complained the app doesn’t boast Chromecast support, meaning phones can’t be hooked up to TVs, while they’ve also taken aim at the amount of ads they’re subjected to.
The app has a 2.2 rating (out of five) on the Google app store, with 728 one-star ratings out of 1328 reviews at the time of writing.
When opening the free app, viewers are forced to watch at least several pre-roll advertisements before the action starts. Being confronted with ads is standard practice for any free-to-air service but some reviewers are angry their phones often go to sleep because the ads take so long to finish.
Others are also upset at ads interrupting live events.
“Typical Channel Seven! Way too many ads and often between play so you miss the action,” one reviewer said.
“Worst of all, halfway through a race Channel 7 decide to play ads,” said another.
However, news.com.au understands close to one million people used the app in the first three days of competition, and Seven is happy with the reliability of its service and the high levels of engagement among consumers, believing the majority enjoy a positive experience with the app.
Customers are able to pay $15 for a premium version of the app, but that still has ads, which has infuriated viewers.
“Paid for premium, but still too many ads! It’s really annoying as they play ads during the slow mo replays so I miss a lot of what’s going on. It’s literally the same bloody ad playing every three minutes. Ridiculous,” one person wrote.
“No Chromecast support and they want to charge (for) premium. Ads randomly pop up with no reason or logic when they come up. Don’t waste money paying for this rubbish,” another said.
Channel Seven has never advertised its premium app as coming without ads. Instead, the paid version comes with fewer ads played in less frequent intervals, and without more intrusive ads like display ads and banners.
Seven pointed to one $15 subscription being able to be shared between eight devices, in which all the action can be viewed in high definition, as one of the main positives for the premium service.
The lack of Chromecast support has proved to be one of the biggest sticking points for users of the app. Chromecasting allows vision from a phone to be played on a TV, but that’s not possible during the Winter Olympics, meaning people are having to watch events on a small phone screen.
“Why on earth did they create a live streaming app with no Chromecast? What’s the point? When I’m at home I want to watch the TV and use my phone for other things,” one user wrote.
“No Chromecast support. Channel 7 once again butchering a sports broadcast,” wrote another.
Channel Seven has instead prioritised integrating other services like Fetch TV, Telstra TV and Apple TV with its app. This was considered a more valuable use of resources than committing to Chromecasting for a two-week event that won’t be held again for another four years.