New Relic Report Reveals Downtime Costs Media and Entertainment Companies $2 Million Per Hour

Report shows observability investments yield significant business value, with 51% of respondents reporting 2–3X ROI

The data shows that AI adoption is the number one driver of observability demand

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New Relic, the Intelligent Observability company, today released its State of Observability for Media and Entertainment report, which offers insights into the factors driving observability adoption in the media and entertainment industry. Surveying engineering leaders and IT team members, the report is based on data from the New Relic 2025 Observability Forecast and highlights the connection between observability, fewer outages, and a strong return on investment (ROI). The data shows that outages are costly and time consuming to address—with high-impact outages costing an average of $2 million per hour in downtime, and taking around 40 minutes to resolve.

Outages damage brand reputation

Outages during a series finale or live sports broadcast make front-page news, and can significantly damage brand reputation. The research reveals that for 33% of respondents, outages cost between $1 and $2 million per hour of downtime, and the average cost of a high-impact outage is $2 million per hour. The top four causes of outages were security issues, followed by network failures, capacity overloads or constraints, and software deployment errors. Detection and resolution times are similar to the industry median—around 30 minutes to detect and 40 minutes to resolve—but the stakes are significantly higher. In the media and entertainment industry, the quality of experience is the product. A 40-minute disruption during a major streaming event can cost millions in lost advertising revenue and lead directly to mass subscriber churn.

Observability creates strong ROI and business value

Media and entertainment organizations report strong returns from their observability investments. Fifty-one percent said they achieved a 2–3x ROI, higher than the average in other industries including finance and retail. Observability also delivers strong benefits to productivity and team collaboration, with 39% of respondents saying observability helped improve system uptime and reliability, and 36% noting improvements to real-user experience. Executives are also recognizing the business value of observability. Fifty percent of leaders report that observability helps them hit technical KPIs, and 36% said it strengthened their ability to drive tactical execution.

AI is creating a better customer experience

Audience experience is the revenue engine of media and entertainment organizations. The research reveals that organizations are using observability’s AI capabilities to automate and speed up manual processes like incident detection, personalized customer recommendations, and post-incident reviews, which are all key components to delivering strong customer experiences. When asked what the top strategy driving observability was, adoption of AI and an increased focus on security, governance, risk, and compliance were the top factors. In order, the next most popular strategies were prioritization of faster software release lifecycles, integration of business applications into workflows, and development of cloud-native application architectures.

“The audience is the ultimate arbiter in the media and entertainment industry. Any digital downtime can tarnish a platform's reputation in minutes, confirming that flawless, on-demand content isn't a luxury—it's the expectation,” said New Relic Chief Technical Strategist Nic Benders. “Organizations are under immense pressure to deliver a perfect experience at scale. Our report proves that observability is delivering measurable business value, as over half of respondents are seeing 2–3x ROI on observability spend.”

Other key findings from the report include:

• Tool consolidation is gaining momentum. The median number of observability tools used is four per organization and 40% of organizations now have three or fewer tools. This is an increase of 10% from 2024.
• Business related data is being integrated with telemetry data. The data shows that close to half (48%) of media and entertainment organizations are integrating customer data with their telemetry, as well as human resources and operations data. These integrations provide teams with clear visibility when a service is down, and quantify the business impact in real-time.

Learn more about how New Relic is uniquely positioned to help media and entertainment companies navigate the competitive landscape and eliminate interruptions in digital experiences:

• Download the full report

About New Relic

The New Relic Intelligent Observability Platform helps businesses eliminate interruptions in digital experiences. New Relic is the only AI-strengthened platform to unify and pair telemetry data to provide clarity over your entire digital estate. We move your problem solving past proactive to predictive by processing the right data at the right time to maximize value and control costs. That’s why businesses around the world—including Adidas Runtastic, American Red Cross, Domino’s, GoTo Group, Ryanair, Swiggy, Topgolf, and William Hill—run on New Relic to drive innovation, improve reliability, and deliver exceptional customer experiences to fuel growth.