UK pay-per-view channel Primetime TV has received 700 complaints from people who were unable to watch UK boxer Ricky Hatton’s comeback fight against Vyacheslav Senchenko on Saturday night due to technical issues.
Customers struggled to process orders for the fight between 7.10pm and 9.50pm, and some were cut off by the automated telephone payment system. Others complained of being presented with a blank screen after having paid £14.95 (€18.51/$24.06) to watch the event.
Primetime said that a technical fault meant it was unable to process orders and added that it was unable to handle the resulting volume of telephone calls from customers, but it denied being understaffed on the night.
Adam Taylor, head of sales and customer services for Portland TV, Primetime TV’s parent company, said that the only customers to suffer problems were attempting to view the event through pay-television operator BSkyB, one of a number of platforms to carry Primetime TV’s coverage.
“This fight was retailed on the largest number of outlets we’ve ever used so it was only Sky customers who may have had problems,” he said, according to UK public-service broadcaster the BBC. “At the moment we’ve experienced 700 complaints which we are working to resolve. Customers who we didn’t send a signal to would not have been charged. We had our largest ever customer operations service on for this event and we will be hoping to get all complaints resolved by the end of this week.”
Primetime said it would deal with every complaint on an individual basis and would refund any paying customers who were unable to watch the fight.
It was Hatton’s first fight since his second-round defeat to Filipino Manny Pacquiao in May 2009 in Las Vegas, the US. He announced his retirement from the sport in July 2011 before deciding on the comeback. He retired again after Senchenko stopped him in the ninth round of Saturday’s fight.