SINGAPORE – The final day of the English Premier League’s 2022-23 season featured thrilling battles with 10 live games, though football fans in Singapore were left angry and frustrated after they were unable to watch the opening 25 minutes.
A “satellite transmission issue” had caused Manchester United and Liverpool fans, in particular, to miss the opening of their matches against Fulham and Southampton respectively on Sunday.
Users of StarHub TV+, who can watch games using the over-the-top service Premier+, were unable to access the application, while the wrong matches were shown on TV.
Instead of the scheduled United game against Fulham, the TV channel showed a delayed telecast of United’s penultimate 4-1 win over Chelsea. On another channel, the Reds’ tie against Southampton was replaced by their 1-1 draw with Aston Villa from the previous weekend.
A number of frustrated subscribers took to social media to air their grievances, which led to an apology by StarHub on its Facebook page at 1am.
“We confirm that the Premier+ service has been restored before midnight. We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused by the service difficulty originated from a satellite transmission issue on several HubPremier Channels. Thank you for your patience,” said the telco on social media.
Responding to queries from The Straits Times, StarHub said on Monday that it had experienced the same issue on “several HubPremier Channels... and we resolved this within 25 minutes from kick-off by obtaining from The Premier League an alternative source”.
“We assure them that we take this matter seriously and will do better to deliver a smooth streaming experience next season,” it added.
Liverpool fan Muhammad Saifulddin, 31, had been looking forward to watching Brazilian forward Roberto Firmino’s farewell match with the Reds. But he missed out on Firmino’s 14th-minute strike as there was still no broadcast then.
He said: “I was very frustrated since Firmino and James Milner, who are both leaving, had started this game and I wanted to watch their final game.
“I was even more frustrated to learn that Firmino managed to have his special moment and yet I could not witness it.
“I hope they can give me 25 per cent discount on my bill since I can’t see the first 25 minutes.”
United fan Levainthiran Sunthiramogan, 29, added: “I had to watch another match (Everton v Bournemouth) while following live updates from Twitter.
“I even had some friends over at my place for this match and we were all wondering what had happened. I had friends who were all complaining about the same thing on WhatsApp.
“This kind of problem is the last thing you expect when you pay for legal broadcasts.”
StarHub had in February 2022 announced that it had secured broadcast rights to the Premier League, breaking a 12-year streak by rival Singtel. Early bird prices then cost existing customers (those with a mobile postpaid, broadband or TV plan that costs more than $15 a month) $24.99 monthly while non-StarHub users paid $39.99 a month.
But there were issues from the opening match, in which Arsenal beat Crystal Palace 2-0.
Broadcast lags, low-quality pictures and audio, as well as sudden freezes on their screens were also reported by users then.
Some customers also encountered problems while trying to log in or link their subscription to their devices. Those issues were eventually ironed out in subsequent weeks until Sunday’s mishap.
This is not the first time that there has been a final day hiccup involving EPL broadcast.
In 2013, the Media Development Authority slapped Singtel with a record fine of $180,000 for a mio TV glitch that disrupted the live telecasts of EPL matches on the final day of the 2011-12 season.
Some 115,000 households had missed out on the few extraordinary minutes on May 13, 2012, when two last-gasp goals for Manchester City against Queens Park Rangers in their last game clinched the title in one of the most thrilling ends to a season.
