Viceland UK, Vice's new 24-hour TV channel, was launched on Sky Channel 153 yesterday but faced early difficulties that meant one of its flagship shows was only aired in full after a few false starts.
Big Night Out, a screen adaptation of one of the website's long-running series, was due to air at 10pm last night, after being reviewed by several newspapers ahead of screening.
The show, however, quickly encountered some technical difficulties.
@joe_bish dunno, looked like a corrupted export or sth. they played the first seven minutes twice & it stopped at the same point both times
@vicelanduk interesting start with big night out which was looking pretty good but come on crashed at same point twice now @SkyUK
According to viewers, the first part of the show played for a few minutes, then stopped. The first few minutes then played again, it stopped once more, then finally played in its entirety.
An error message also briefly appeared on the TV screen.
First day going well I see... @vicelanduk... It came back on halfway through typing this tweet though!
According to Broadcasters' Audience Research Board figures published by The Telegraph, the first day of broadcasting from the channel was watched by 1,900 adults overall.
Out of those, effectively none were between the ages of 18 and 34 – the target audience for the company, according to past interviews with Viceland creative director Alex Miller.
A representative for the company confirmed that there had been technical issues during Big Night Out, but said that they were eventually able to resolve them.