Amazon Helping Prime Viewers Grumbling Over TNF Broadcasts

Amazon continued tweeting troubleshooting steps to viewers complaining of poor quality streaming on Thursday Night Football during the Indianapolis Colts-Denver Broncos NFL game in Week 5. It was the fourth exclusive TNF broadcast for Amazon Prime Video, after its week two debut Sept. 15. Viewers complained of issues with delay, resolution, frame rate, audio and streaming artifacts.

Thursday was our first experience with the Amazon Prime offering, and we immediately noticed frame rate issues with the broadcast on a 43-inch Roku TV. The motion wasn’t as smooth as we experience when watching football games on CBS, Fox Sports, NBC and ESPN via Fios, and it detracted from the overall viewing experience.

On social media, @GonzoParker tweeted Thursday, “Not only is the whole game playing in 'stop motion' … I’m getting updates from my Fantasy Football Apps well before I see them on @PrimeVideo … like 5-6 plays difference. #TNFonPrime is Trash.”

Sara from Amazon Help apologized to @GonzoParker for "the inconvenience,” encouraging TNF viewers to contact Amazon and click the “start chatting” or “call me” buttons on the website. Amazon’s Thursday Night Football Help Hub gives viewers a tutorial on “how to watch Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video."

@ujeff15 concurred with @GonzoParker, posting a screenshot of an error message he received watching the game that said “Unable to play video.” Error Code 7136 said there was a problem playing the video, which “appears to be our issue on our end.” The message said to try playing the video again and to contact Amazon Customer Service if the problem continued. Ronda at Amazon Help referred @ujeff15 to the Thursday Night Football Help Hub.

Amazon Help also responded to @susidio1 who tweeted: “The blurry picture on @PrimeVideo is enough to NOT watch @NFL," comparing the experience to "watching channel 38 with my dad in 1979. #quality #blur #poorstandards.”

The game itself was cause for scorn and humor from many viewers as well, one saying it was possibly the worst game he had ever watched. @kstater76 tweeted that Amazon “is pretty good about returns,” showing a screenshot of an Amazon returns page. In comments under “Why are you returning this,” @kstater76 typed in: “Russell not cooking,” in reference to the play of Broncos’ quarterback Russell Wilson.

For viewers used to watching football games as part of a larger pay-TV subscription or sports package, the exclusivity of the Amazon Prime arrangement gave them an opportunity to ask for compensation. Viewer @Geeseyy suggested cheekily in a tweet that the Amazon marketing team should give everyone watching the low-scoring game “free Prime for a month.”

In FAQs on the Prime Video TNF page, Amazon listed devices that can show Thursday Night Football but are “not optimized for watching live content." The listed devices “may not be able to access full advanced features like the alternate streams or X-Ray,” Amazon said. The device list included “some” Comcast and Cox set-top boxes, 2019 LG MStar TVs and "some 2012-2015" LG smart TVs, Sony 2014 and 2017 Blu-ray players, Gen 2 and 3 Apple TVs from 2010-2012 and “specific Android TV Devices" including a "Funai 2020 TV, Sony 2019 TV, Google SMP 2020 and TCL 2019.”

Samsung devices on the list included 2012-2015 smart TVs, 2014 Blu-ray players, Samsung TVs with Kantsu/S chipsets and “Samsung Television 2020 Novatek.” A search for the Novatek product brought up a listing of news releases including a CES 2020 release referencing a Ceva announcement that Novatek Microelectronics licensed its voice software for SoCs used in “always-on listening devices such as smart TVs” and other products.

Amazon suggested users who notice issues with any of the listed TVs, set-top boxes or Blu-ray players buy a supported device such as its Fire TV Stick 4, “complete with exclusive Thursday Night Football features.” Under tips for the best viewing experience, Amazon recommends updating to the latest version of the Prime Video app and using a minimum internet download speed of 1 Mbps for SD and 5 Mbps for HD.

In a Sept. 19 podcast on Sports Media with Richard Deitsch, recorded the day after the first Amazon TNF broadcast, Prime Video Executive Producer Fred Gaudelli noted Amazon Prime started from “just a logo” with TNF and had to build a crew and operation, contrasting that with when he joined NBC’s Sunday Night Football, where a solid sports broadcast infrastructure was already in place. At Amazon Prime’s TNF, “We were like the cavemen, just going out foraging and figuring out how we were going to get all this stuff done. When you start with nothing and then you end up where you are last night, that’s a lot of work.”

Responding to questions about snags with syncing sound with the picture, which plagued the first game, TNF Lead Director Pierre Moossa said documenting the game in a high-quality broadcast is the show’s priority, and "one of the things we have to focus on is getting to be a bit more in sync on different aspects of things that come with time and come with practice.”

Gaudelli monitored social media comments after Amazon Prime's first game to see issues viewers had watching the game. He noted his girlfriend reported a great experience viewing on her iPad in Manhattan, but her TV “kept turning off. She had two different experiences in the same room,” he said. Gaudelli referenced variables out of Amazon’s control, including where viewers live, their Wi-Fi speed and bandwidth, “and who else is using it in your area.” Commenting on Amazon's consumer focus, Gaudelli said Amazon is “very consumer and customer-driven, and I’m hoping every week this is going to be less and less a thing.”