Sky Sports have been forced to apologise to viewers after disruption to their broadcast of Premier League Darts experienced issues.
The Premier League Darts train rolled into Brighton for night five of the competition, with World No 1 Luke Humphries looking to make it two in a row after coming out on top in Exeter.
Viewers will have been waiting eagerly for the night’s play, especially given the heavyweight clash between Michael van Gerwen and Gerwyn Price from 7pm.
But disaster struck when the programme went down for around two minutes before an error message appeared from Sky apologising for the disruption.
While the broadcast did in fact return, it was pockmarked by technical issues throughout.
Problems continued during Luke Littler’s scare against Chris Dobey, and even prompted an on-air apology from Sky’s commentary team.
Sky Sports’ coverage of the Premier League Darts was plagued by technical difficulties
Viewers were at least able to witness Luke Humphries’ stunning nine-darter against Rob Cross
Presenter Emma Paton had attempted to apologise for the issues only for the coverage to drop
‘We apologise if you are experiencing any kind of malfunction and picture break-up. It will be fixed momentarily, I assure you.’
Thankfully, though, fans were able to witness Humphries’ nine-dart finish in his quarter-final clash with Rob Cross, which sent the capacity crowd into meltdown.
Within seconds though, the pictures dropped again for a few seconds, though viewers will doubtless be grateful it wasn’t a few heart beats sooner.
As such, presenter Emma Paton took to social media to quip on X: ‘I REALLY HOPE YOU ALL SAW THAT.’
Paton had already attempted to apologise for the disruption during the break between Humphris vs Cross, only for the pictures to drop, ironically.
During the fifth leg of the tie, another message appeared on screen which read: ‘We apologise for the loss of pictures. We are working hard to resolve the issue.’
The programme did improve later in the night, with Nathan Aspinall’s quarter-final clash with cellar-dweller Stephen Bunting largely free of interruption.
