The Oscars were live-streamed for the first time Sunday evening, but the experience wasn’t picture-perfect. Hulu faced multiple glitches, including one that cut off the live stream just before the final two big awards of the night.
With Best Actress and Best Picture yet to be announced, Hulu’s stream ended abruptly and displayed a message: “Thank you for watching. This live event has ended. You may exit playback and select something else to watch.”
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Hulu’s parent company, Disney, acknowledged the disruption. “This evening, we experienced technical and live stream issues on Hulu which impacted some Oscars viewers. We apologize for the experience and will make a full replay of the event available as soon as possible,” it said.
As Deadline notes, the issue might lie with the length of the ceremony. It went on for 3 hours and 47 minutes, and Hulu might have only prepared for 3 hours and 30 minutes, resulting in the cut-off of the final minutes. (Even though awards shows always run late.)
That wasn’t Hulu’s first glitch for the night, though. According to Downdetector, the streaming service experienced an outage at around 7 p.m. ET. The live event was just about to start, and subscribers were unable to log in. Hulu addressed the issue at around 7:40 p.m. ET and fixed it an hour later.
Unsurprisingly, viewers weren’t happy with the overall experience and expressed frustration on social media. “This is bad. I’ve tried to be fair, but I honestly think the Oscars broadcast has been a disaster for Hulu,” posted one viewer on X.
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“[Anora director] Sean Baker gives a speech about why movie theaters are better than streaming services, and then Hulu goes down right before Best Picture is announced… Case in point,” wrote another.
(Disclosure: Downdetector owner Ookla is owned by PCMag parent company Ziff Davis.)
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About Jibin Joseph
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