Generally, PPVs are pretty solid. PPVs have lots of sources, and the servers usually have more than one channel, even extra channels to show PPVs. On the other hand, regular TV may not have as many sources per channel, and the servers themselves get slammed with requests for the same stream. It isn't a problem isolated to the supported servers, you see that with smaller competitors as well. Adding to this are users of services like NetFlix or Hulu, so intermediate servers just passing packets are getting slammed.
Last night was not good on any service I used, but it cleared up in the late evening. But getting back to your question, mickey, PPVs are often more reliable than a stream, say from Fox News, or ESPN, or any other very popular channel.