SDPB has technical issues during Mitchell’s game versus Pierre

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South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s next pledge drive might not go very well.

The television station’s broadcast of the Class AA boys’ state basketball tournament went dark Friday night after the first semifinal game. When fans tried to tune in for the scheduled 8:45 p.m. Central time start of the Mitchell vs. Pierre semifinal, they were greeted by nothing but the SDPB logo and silence.

Every so often, a recorded voice broke in: “We are experiencing technical difficulties and will return to our program as soon as possible. Please stand by.”

Live video of the game finally appeared at the start of the second quarter, but with no sound and no graphics displaying the score or game time.

During halftime, SDPB broke in with the voice of a broadcaster who said a crew “in the truck” was “working feverishly” to fix the technical issues. The broadcaster said only one camera and one microphone had been made operational at that point.

The second half brought picture and audio from SDPB’s broadcast team, but with no graphics showing the score or game time and with periodic audio interruptions that sounded like a portion of a radio broadcast of the game. At times, the audio from SDPB and the mysterious radio station overlapped, producing an unintelligible mix of voices. Once in the third quarter, an extended clip of the song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” overtook all of the other audio sources.

Tags: boys state tournament, sports, basketball