Sky TV says a tech glitch last night, which prevented some people watching their favourite shows for the best part of two hours, was not due to its new hardware.

The blunder saw mainstream shows labelled “Restricted Content”, across all channels.

“It was across the older box and the new Sky Box,” a Sky spokeswoman said this morning.

Sky said only a “small number” of boxes were affected but could not immediately put a number on it.

It was enough to overwhelm the broadcaster’s online tech support, however. Subscribers logging on to Sky TV’s chat service for help received a message indicating there are more than 100 people in the virtual queue ahead of them.

“We were alerted to the problem at 7pm. All normal viewing had resumed by 8.40pm (most much sooner) for those affected,” the Sky spokeswoman said.

Some viewers reported the SkyGo app was still working.

Others said the issue was fixed shortly after being identified.