Sky's sorry Fonterra saga

Sky TV has apologised after a network glitch left some farmers unable to watch Fonterra's capital restructure announcement broadcast live. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Sky Television has made a series of high-profile apologies after dropping the ball on an important financial broadcast - even interrupting pre-match discussions ahead of Saturday's All Blacks-Wallabies rugby test.

Studio rugby host Tony Johnson took a moment shortly before the Tri-Nations game to say sorry on behalf of the broadcaster for a glitch that meant some farmers were unable to watch Fonterra's capital restructure announcement as it happened.

Friday's announcement by Fonterra was due to kick-start discussions about how to get more cash for the co-operative - discussions chairman Henry van der Heyden had said were as important to farmers as the talks that created Fonterra in 2001.

The announcement was supposed to be broadcast to all Sky digital subscribers - but when the time came, only subscribers to the Country Channel could see it.

As well as the televised apology, Sky took out two full-page advertisements apologising for the inconvenience and "embarrassment" caused to Fonterra.

"Sky Television unreservedly apologises to all Fonterra farmers, who were unable to view Fonterra's capital restructure ... on Friday.

"Sky Television also apologises for the difficulties farmers experienced in contacting our call centre, and for any inaccurate or misleading information given by our staff," said the ad.

Sky spokesman Tony O'Brien said Fonterra regularly made announcements using Sky but "this time it was a very significant announcement [and] unfortunately we had a technical problem".

Angry farmers began calling before the pay broadcaster could brief call centre operators.

A spokesman for Fonterra said the dairy co-operative had written to farmer-shareholders telling them to look out for the broadcast at 1pm on Friday.

It was arranged so that farmers would hear new proposals to raise capital straight from Fonterra.

The spokesman said farmers were left sitting and waiting when the announcement failed to appear. "Farmers have always said ... they'd like to hear [announcements] first so that's why the Sky broadcast was set up.

"Fonterra wanted farmers to have all the information at the same time, and first."

However the co-operative would not take the issue any further, he said.

Sky rebroadcast the announcement several times on the Country Channel on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.