Pay television station Primetime has issued an apology to viewers after technical issues caused many of them to miss out on Ricky Hatton's comeback fight.

Some customers who attempted to order the match between 7.10pm and 9.50pm were unable to do so, while others were greeted with a blank blue screen after shelling out £14.95.

Primetime has admitted that it suffered "technical issues" throughout the evening and struggled with the volume of orders, but denies being understaffed.

Many viewers are said to have been able to contact technical support on the night, but the company has pledged to refund affected customers and handle complaints on an individual basis.

"This fight was retailed on the largest number of outlets we've ever used so it was only Sky customers who may have had problems," Adam Taylor, head of sales with Primetime parent company Portland TV, told BBC News.

"At the moment we've experienced 700 complaints which we are working to resolve. Customers who we didn't send a signal to would not have been charged."

"We had our largest ever customer operations service on for this event and we will be hoping to get all complaints resolved by the end of this week."

Hatton crashed to a knockout defeat to Vyacheslav Senchenko and later announced his retirement from boxing.