Popularity Crashes Inaugural Derek & Romaine 2.0 Webcast

New York, NY, Jan 5, 2016 - Popular gay and lesbian radio duo Derek and Romaine turned out to be more in-demand than they thought after unexpected high volume on their website crashed their debut show.

Fired last June after twelve years together on satellite radio, Monday was to mark the return to daily broadcasts for hosts Derek Hartley and Romaine Patterson with a new web-based streaming service. But after the www.DerekAndRomaine.com site experienced more than 1.1 million hits an hour, potential listeners got nothing but error messages.

"It was devastating," says Derek, "I know the conventional wisdom is that too many listeners is the kind of problem anyone should want to have, but delivering a quality experience is important to us. We want people to be able to hear our show again."

Hundreds of people did hear the show having accessed the streaming player a few minutes early before the live show was to start at 5 p.m. ET, but it was only a fraction of those who subscribed in advance to the new service. "People have been signing for the last two weeks and frankly we started the day at the low end of our expectations for subscribers, so this was a total shock," says Romaine. "We hoped the listeners would be there for us when we came back but we never thought it would be like this."

The hosts still put on their show as planned, including a conversation with their inaugural guest comedian Adam Sank, which has been warmly received in social media by those who were finally able to hear it. "Was able to listen to the first show and can't tell you how happy I am you guys are back!" declared Donald Corvin on Facebook. JasonJacks10 on Twitter posted, "Was lucky enough 2 connect 2 the show at the beginning. FANTASTIC job! I'm SO happy that you 2 are back!"

Even though most of their diehard fans took the experience in stride, Derek still wishes it could have gone better. "As someone who struggled to buy 'Star Wars' tickets online when they first went on sale, I know that even big companies aren't insulated from these kinds of issues. It's the nature of appointment programming. You never really know how many people will show up all at once until they do."

Their website finally came back after 8 p.m. ET and subscribers can hear the show streaming there now as planned, but the whole experience took a toll on the hosts. "After the website was working again, Derek just laid face-down on the floor." Romaine says, "It was fine. The carpet in here is a lot cleaner than the one in our old studio."

Derek Hartley and Romaine Patterson hosted "Derek and Romaine" on satellite radio from April 2003 to June 2015. DNR 2.0 is an audio streaming subscription service available through the website derekandromaine.com online and through smart phones. Subscriptions start at $6.25 per month and include all live streaming shows, streaming and download archives as well as exclusive bonus material available only to subscribers.