Sunita Somvanshi
Imagine sitting down to watch your favorite show, and suddenly – blank screen. That’s what happened to more than 30,000 Sky TV customers on May 15, 2025, just as people were settling in for their evening viewing.
The trouble started around 9:20 PM, right when many were tuning in for the big PGA Championship matches and Eurovision shows. Sky Q boxes kept switching themselves off, leaving viewers staring at black screens.
“Sort it out,” wrote an angry viewer on X. “Sky keeps crashing. Internet on and off. Always on a Thursday when darts is on.” Another viewer got the message saying “please wait while we load your programme” before their screen went dark.
The problems hit homes across the UK and Ireland. From London to Manchester, Dublin to Cork, viewers faced the same headache – no TV service. Some tried the old “turn it off and on again” trick with their Sky Q boxes, but the fix didn’t last long before screens went black again.
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It wasn’t just Sky channels causing trouble. BBC, ITV, and other channels disappeared too. “Total blackout,” as one viewer put it. The Sky app wasn’t working for some customers either, leaving them without service.
The numbers show how big this problem was. Nearly half the people reporting issues had no signal at all. Another big chunk couldn’t get their TV working properly. Even Sky’s newer services – Sky Glass and Sky Stream – had some viewers reporting black screens.
A customer summed up everyone’s frustration: “What’s going on with Sky TV? It’s crashed twice.” For viewers trying to watch their evening shows, sports fans following live matches, and Eurovision enthusiasts ready for the semi-finals, the timing couldn’t have been worse.
This blackout follows other recent service problems in the UK. In February 2025, Virgin Media users lost internet for six hours. These outages show how much we depend on working TV service for our daily entertainment.
The night turned into a major disruption for thousands of viewers who couldn’t access their regular programs. Instead of watching their evening shows, they spent time repeatedly restarting their TV boxes – with no immediate solution.
