German pay-TV broadcaster Sky Deutschland has issued an apology to customers after streaming coverage of Saturday’s highly-anticipated Bundesliga clash between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund was hit by severe technical problems.
Users of Sky Go and Sky Ticket, the over-the-top services, were met with blank screens when trying to stream the game with technical difficulties causing disruption up until the 65th minute (by which time Bayern were 2-0 ahead).
Carsten Schmidt, the broadcaster’s chief executive, issued a lengthy apology in a statement issued to customers, saying that the broadcaster had “intensively prepared” for the expected additional streaming traffic.
He said: “The cable and satellite broadcast went flawlessly but we did not deliver in practice on Sky Go and Sky Ticket. For that I would like to apologise personally and sincerely.
“We will try to find a satisfactory solution for affected users as quickly as possible. And I can promise you one thing: the whole team at Sky will do everything possible to prevent such a thing happening in the future.”
The Sky Go service is for subscribers to Sky’s linear channel packages while Sky Ticket offers daily or monthly access passes.
The technical failure has led to calls for compensation from affected customers, notably those who bought a Sky Ticket day pass for €9.99 ($11.02) in order to watch the match.
Bayern’s 4-0 victory attracted a record television audience on Sky. The game was watched by 1.93 million subscribers from 6.30pm (CET) onwards, the pay-TV broadcaster’s highest Bundesliga audience of the season so far.