NBC Outage In Michigan Made Lions Fans Roar With Anger

By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man –Follow on & X.
Former Sony employee and editor of 4 TV magazines.

TV Answer Man, do you know anything about the outage during the Lions game yesterday. We couldn’t watch the game for an hour! — Todd, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Todd, you were not alone. There were numerous reports yesterday on social media that fans couldn’t watch the Detroit Lions-Tampa Bay Buccaneers playoff game because of an NBC outage, apparently centered in the Michigan area.

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It’s unclear how many fans were affected but at least one Michigan NBC affiliate (WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, Michigan) lost its signal, according to the reports. This did not sit well with Lions fans who have been waiting for their team to become a Super Bowl contender for decades.

You have got to be kidding me. My NBC feed on DirecTV. Guess I didn’t want to watch the @Lions win today. @DIRECTV is a complete joke pic.twitter.com/5fx1RqrjVs

— Mike Betts (@mikebetts71) January 21, 2024

We pay good money for this and we can’t even watch the GAME OF THE YEAR? Fix it now. We are not happy!

— Stacy Eastway (@StacyMacCallum) January 21, 2024

Some fans opined that the outage was a ploy to get people to subscribe to Peacock, the $5.99 a month NBC-owned streaming service that was also showing the game. But since there seems to be no evidence that the outage occurred outside Michigan, that is highly unlikely.

NBC scam. That’s all that was. Funny how Peacock was just fine

— Mike Magnuson (@Biilsmafiarulz) January 22, 2024

After about 30 minutes of facing a blank screen, the NBC signal returned to WOOD-TV and fans returned to the action. The Lions wound up winning, 31-23, and will now face the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC championship game this Sunday.

Explanation from WOOD-TV regarding the loss of signal during the Lions Playoff Game:

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The Lions game feed experienced an outage Sunday but WOOD TV was able to find a solution to get a signal back on the air.

The WOOD TV8 signal was lost during the…

— bill steffen (@bsteffen) January 21, 2024

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The TV Answer Man is veteran journalist Phillip Swann who has covered the TV technology scene for more than three decades. He will report on the latest news and answer your questions regarding new devices and services that are changing the way you watch television. See the bio for Phillip Swann here.