Earlier this morning, the Snooker World Championship match between Neil Robertson and Shaun Murphy vanished from BBC Two.
Instead, a white holding screen came up, which read: “We are sorry for the break in this programme and are trying to correct the fault. We will return to the programme as soon as possible.”
Shortly after, a voiceover man said: “I’m sorry about that. We were enjoying the Robertson and Murphy match there and then the picture just froze.
“We’ll do what we can to fix the problem and get back to the snooker as soon as we can.”
“We have a technical issue which means we can’t carry on”
BBC Two voiceover
But the minutes ticked by and the screen was still the same, leading to the voiceover man returning with an update.
He said: “This is BBC Two, I’m sorry about this. We’ve got a technical fault that means at the moment we can’t continue with the snooker coverage from The Crucible.
“We’re doing what we can to fix the problem and hopefully we’ll be back with the snooker as soon as possible.”
He returned a few moments later, explaining: “Once again I’m really sorry about this, I’m a snooker fan myself as well as you and I was enjoying this match between Robertson and Murphy but, unfortunately, we have a technical issue which means we can’t carry on with the pictures, or indeed the sound from the snooker at The Crucible in Sheffield.
AWKWARD: BBC Two lost its link to the Snooker World Championship (Pic: BBC)
TENSE: Viewers were watching Robertson v Murphy in the Snooker World Championship (Pic: BBC)
“Behind the scenes we’re doing everything we can to fix the fault and we will be back with it as soon as possible, so do bear with us. Sorry about this.”
After the snooker had been lost for around five minutes, he returned, saying: “This is BBC Two and I’m really sorry because, as much as we’ve been trying to sort out our problems with our link to The Crucible in Sheffield for the snooker, unfortunately we can’t fix the problem at the moment, so we can’t return to the snooker.
“We will do everything we can to fix the problem but in the meantime, we’re going to fill in with Coast.”
An episode of Coast then began, and continued for around another five minutes, before the snooker returned once more.
FILL IN: The BBC announcer revealed they would air Coast until they could fix the issue (Pic: BBC)
BACK ON: The snooker returned after approximately 10 minutes (Pic: BBC)
Viewers were seriously confused, with one saying: “Anyone else watching the snooker then happened to be watching Coast during the game? What’s happened?”
Another tweeted: “Where. Has. The. Snooker. Gone? #ILoveSnooker.”
And a third added: “Typical when you’re about to catch up on the snooker after a busy morning and it’s taken off air by a power cut. Probably just a BBC fault as apparently, Eurosport carried on unaffected.”
Daily Star Online has contacted a rep for BBC Two for comment.
