Yesterday, Irish people everywhere tuned in to watch Katie Taylor take on Mavzuna Chorieva in the women’s lightweight boxing semi-final at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Being scheduled in the early afternoon, many viewers turned to online services to watch the fight, and Aertv saw a record-breaking traffic spike as a result.
Just fewer than 10,000 viewers watched the fight with the online TV provider, breaking Aertv’s record for the most-watched Irish sporting event ever on the platform.
“Katie Taylor’s semi-final fight has been the highlight of the Olympics so far and we are delighted that so many people tuned into Aertv.ie to watch it,” said Philippe Brodeur, director of Aertv. “As an online TV provider, we specialise in making sure that viewers can get on our site when big events happen and we expect the fight on Thursday afternoon to break all sorts of records for traffic.”
Disgruntled viewers seeking to watch the fight on the RTÉ website vented their frustrations on Twitter when the service was unable to handle the high volume of requests. Having already broken viewing records during the recent Euro 2012 football tournament, Aertv clearly knows how to handle traffic spikes during major sporting events, and the national broadcaster needs to take note.
Later today, Taylor will go for gold against Russia’s Sofya Ochigava. During yesterday’s fight, Airfibre reported that its network activity increased by 800pc, and even greater levels are predicted at 4.45pm today.
