Despite its "impressive promises regarding its Olympic broadcasting, RTVE is facing complaints from viewers during the first week of Rio 2016," according to Juan Fernandez Gonzalez of RAPID TV NEWS. Spain’s public broadcaster had prepared its "most ambitious coverage for the Olympics," with up to three simultaneous linear free-to-air networks, 19 live streaming feeds for connected devices and a "powerful app for mobile screens." But the plan is not "working as expected." Viewers have been "complaining about chaotic broadcasting, switching from one competition to another mid-stream, interrupting fan-favourite games to show other second-tier competitions and swapping programming between the three linear networks without changing the schedule." And the online coverage is "not helping." Through the Botón Rojo app, RTVE has "19 active feeds from Rio de Janeiro." But the channels are "reported to be failing, not streaming what they were supposed to and even repeating the same competition through different feeds" (RAPID TV NEWS, 8/11).
