Episode muted – then pulled

Sky 1 has apologised after technical issues forced the latest episode of Ruth Jones’s new comedy Stella off air.

Friday’s episode was dogged by sound problems as soon as it started, and technicians had to pull the show, replacing it with a re-run of The Simpsons.

However, viewers were not told directly what was going on and had to turn to the broadcaster’s twitter feed, which told them: ‘We apologise for the sound issue on Sky1 during the episode of Stella, this episode is repeated on Sky2 Sunday at 9pm.’

More information was provided by the channel’s head Stuart Murphy, who provided a running commentary on his personal Twitter account, with a string of apologies

He first tweeted: ‘I'm so sorry for that temporary technical fault everyone. Sorry sorry sorry.

Then: ‘We are working incredibly hard to fix this. It's a problem just on SD not HD. It's on again Sunday at 9 on Sky 2. Massive apologies.

And then: ‘I'm sorry everyone. The tape is damaged so we are running the Simpsons while we try to fix it and will try to re start stella at 10... for those who are asking, we have been technically unable to put a caption on screen apologising, which is why I am tweeting.’

The problem could not be fixed by 10pm and Sky rescheduled the episode for the following evening, bumping a movie to make way.

Murphy said everyone at Sky was ‘mortified’ by the error – and revealed that he had received a barrage of insults from other Twitter users. ‘Our favourite is me being called A waste of sperm,’ he said. ‘As stressed as I was, that did make us all laugh.’

Sarah Millican was among those experiencing problems, tweeting: ‘Is my Sky box fucked or has someone muted Sky1?’

And later: ‘Thanks to all of the “techies” telling me I've got it on mute or to turn it off & on again. It's a channel fault and I'm not a bloody idiot.’

Stella has proved one the most successful of Sky’s new comedies, with the first episode getting ratings of 1.5million, added up over all its screenings and on-demand viewings.

Published: 23 Jan 2012