This is what the SABC3 had to say about the Survivor blunder:

"Thank you very much to the people watching the SABC. When things go wrong they're quick to complain, but they don't congratulate us when things go right."

Kaizer Kganyago

This is what Gmail said, the next day, about a widespread outage that affected people everywhere:

Gmail's web interface had a widespread outage earlier today, lasting about 100 minutes. We know how many people rely on Gmail for personal and professional communications, and we take it very seriously when there's a problem with the service. Thus, right up front, I'd like to apologize to all of you — today's outage was a Big Deal, and we're treating it as such. We've already thoroughly investigated what happened, and we're currently compiling a list of things we intend to fix or improve as a result of the investigation.

First, and foremost, recognise and express your understanding that your mistake was big enough to cause people some sort of pain or unhappiness. Then express how seriously you take the situation and then apologise and then tell us how you're investigating what went wrong / or tell us that you've already investigated the problem and have a plan to try and prevent it from happening again.

Sure, things go wrong but own up, apologise and don't play-it-down. The SABC3 has a lot to learn about PR!