ITV sport......SHIT!!!

[clapham_gull]

I'm sure you did get the point, but I wasn't entirely serious about the work experience kid...

ok

I still doubt whether this was a cockup by ITV,

.. possibly, but the fact the HD and other feeds were ok, sounds to me that it was the playout end (not managed by ITV)

BBC don't really have to deal with things like "opting out" for localised advertising, so I'd imagine that having to deal with that on a live over run event like a football match is a bit of a mare.

The person actually doing the job is just like you and me and probably simply forgot to bring the live feed back in.

Sounds a glamorous job, but in reality (these days) it's down the lower end of the TV wage and it's long shifts in a dark room having to monitor many many channels being played out by computers that inevitably sometimes wrong.

I'd hate to be the person responsible because even on the channels with low viewers the reaction internally will be 100 times the reaction on here.

Could be simply a technical problem however.

 

[trueblue]

It's very, very unlikely that this cock-up had anything at all to do with anyone that works on ITV's sports coverage. It is almost certainly a transmission problem. As has been said, some people watching on different platforms didn't lose the picture at all.

These things happen unfortunately. Sky have missed goals before, when the Director has been taking replays while the action is still going on... now that is a true cock-up in the coverage sense, but these things tend to be less high profile on satellite channels.

If you're going to blame ITV for this, then you might as well have blamed the BBC when the European Championship semi-final was blacked out for several minutes, three times in the same game in the summer. It is totally beyond the programme makers' control.

 

[clapham_gull]

It's very, very unlikely that this cock-up had anything at all to do with anyone that works on ITV's sports coverage. It is almost certainly a transmission problem. As has been said, some people watching on different platforms didn't lose the picture at all.

These things happen unfortunately. Sky have missed goals before, when the Director has been taking replays while the action is still going on... now that is a true cock-up in the coverage sense, but these things tend to be less high profile on satellite channels.

If you're going to blame ITV for this, then you might as well have blamed the BBC when the European Championship semi-final was blacked out for several minutes, three times in the same game in the summer. It is totally beyond the programme makers' control.

Absolutely spot on.

 

[Tooting Gull]

http://forums.itv.com/thread/802346.aspx

This itv forum seems to have been getting some hammer. You have to register - but that hasn't stopped 'em...

 

[Midikilledmydog]

Yeah right, but there is no excuse for the commentator advertising a highlights programme of the other games later in the evening and then not only reading out the scores, but flashing them across the screen without so much of a 'look away now' Total f***ing amateurs

 

[clapham_gull]

Yeah right, but there is no excuse for the commentator advertising a highlights programme of the other games later in the evening and then not only reading out the scores, but flashing them across the screen without so much of a 'look away now' Total f***ing amateurs

The whole look away now thing, is becoming a bit uncommon to be honest.

 

[Bozza]

Yeah right, but there is no excuse for the commentator advertising a highlights programme of the other games later in the evening and then not only reading out the scores, but flashing them across the screen without so much of a 'look away now' Total f***ing amateurs

The national news? Here in Lichfield, we had 'look away now' and no reading out of any scores.

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

I LOVE the comment on the ITV forum:

Come on everyone, isn't the idea of incompetent amateurs, performing in arenas way beyond their ability, what the FA Cup is all about?

Thank you ITV for bringing a bit of magic back to the fa cup.

 

[Withdean Wanderer]

http://forums.itv.com/thread/802346.aspx

This itv forum seems to have been getting some hammer. You have to register - but that hasn't stopped 'em...

Superb!

"Now next time the FA cup rights are up for renewal can you just let the BBC have them please? No amateurism, no adverts and no David Pleat.

And you wonder why your advertising revenue is down. "

 

[Twinkle Toes]

Total f***ing amateurs

Hits Nail On Bonce.

f***ing useless presenter & 'pundits'; f***ing useless coverage from start to finish; a useless match & then they miss the f***ing goal via a cocked-up ad break.

Give me strength.

 

[trueblue]

Yeah right, but there is no excuse for the commentator advertising a highlights programme of the other games later in the evening and then not only reading out the scores, but flashing them across the screen without so much of a 'look away now' Total f***ing amateurs

That's pretty much common practice nowadays. It's assumed that when people have so many sources for scores, most will know what's happened by the time the highlights come on.

As it happens, I'm with you. I much prefer to avoid the scores... but it doesn't make them 'f***ing amateurs'.

 

[jazzy]

Setanta and ITV will definitely lose their contracts now. BBC and Sky will pick them up once again.

I switched over to Setanta 2 when ITV went and just caught the goal on there. So Setanta were OK and they showed all the highlights of the other games afterwards too.


.

 

[Easy 10]

ITV reap what they sow.
They plug their FA Cup coverage with loads of ads showing milkmen hurdling challenges by Gerrard, and postmen nodding the ball in past Cech. Then when the games come along, they show Preston v Liverpool, or Man U v Spurs. Completely ignoring the non-leaguers.

And who can forget the 2007 Brazilian GP, with Hamiltion going for the title. There he is, up with the front-runners, then two shaving foam ads and a Land of Leather jobbie later we rejoin the action with Lewis back in about 18th after a gearbox problem.

ITV should just stick to their shit soaps, and Harry Hills TV Burp. Honestly, they're f***ing useless for anything else.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

It's very, very unlikely that this cock-up had anything at all to do with anyone that works on ITV's sports coverage. It is almost certainly a transmission problem. As has been said, some people watching on different platforms didn't lose the picture at all.

Forgive me for being a dunce, but what is this platform business? It seems that a number of posters at different ends of the country lost the picture and ended up with an advert. Some got it back just in time, others didn't?

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

Does anyone remember ITV's cricket coverage?! What a joke.

 

[clapham_gull]

Well, I'll say it again - sounds a problem outside of ITV

Broadcasters don't tend to do their own transmission any more and ITV are no exception.

Sounds like the parent feed (probably in London) sent a message for the regionals to start playing ads.

The Leeds transmission reacted quicker to it and managed to pull back, but London weren't so quick.

This is the reason that the Granada region actually got to see the goal.

What everything has to understand is that these days the whole thing in highly automated and computerised and inevitably things go wrong.


Whilst people may think of some old fashioned gallery with a new knobs and switches, what you get in reality is juggernaut of a system playing multiple feeds which are relatively simple to operate but a bit of a nightmare when they go wrong.

These days it tends to resemble something at NASA.

Added to that you've got the complexity of something like ITV which is switching in and out or regional content, but dealing with live OBs as well.

Unfortunate it happened on a goal, very rare occurance - but if they had "crashed" out of a local advert back into the national feed (which often happens) you'd hardly ever notice.

The other thing to understand is that ITV themselves don't do their own playout. BBC don't either, but SKY is managed in-house.

Working in tranmission is a thankless job at times. You never get grief for making it go out unnoticed, but when an error occurs it's the worst thing in the world. The people who do it work very long hours and generally get all the grief when things go wrong. It's got to be one of the worst jobs in TV in my opinion.

To put it into context there are few jobs when a minor mistake gets noticed by millions of people instantly.

 

[NickL]

Now they're showing the everton highlights 2nd on the show, even though it's been on all bloody evening!

 

[Easy 10]

I'm sorry Clapham, but in all my considerable years of watching Live televised football across any number of channels, I have never - not once - NEVER - seen a live transmission of a game of soccerball interrupted by a commercial break. Not even during the Yankieball World cup

The fact that a GOAL went in whilst it happened is, perhaps, monstrously unfortunate for the broadcaster. But the fact remains, it happened on ITV's coverage, it happened on ITV's watch. And that, I'm afraid, makes them officially SHIT.

Heads should be rolling tomorrow.

 

[clapham_gull]

I'm sorry Clapham, but in all my considerable years of watching Live televised football across any number of channels, I have never - not once - NEVER - seen a live transmission of a game of soccerball interrupted by a commercial break.

The fact that a GOAL went in whilst it happened is, perhaps, monstrously unfortunate for the broadcaster. But the fact remains, it happened on ITV's coverage, it happened on ITV's watch. And that, I'm afraid, makes them officially SHIT.

Heads should be rolling tomorrow.

I'm sorry Easy, but it ain't on ITVs watch as such.

 

[trueblue]

Forgive me for being a dunce, but what is this platform business? It seems that a number of posters at different ends of the country lost the picture and ended up with an advert. Some got it back just in time, others didn't?

By platform, I just mean the signal you're using to watch the game. It sounds like some people had uninterrupted transmission (someone mentioned Freesat as being okay, I think, and Setanta was unaffected?). What that means, for certain, is that ITV Sport's coverage of the match was not the problem - the fault came somewhere within the delivery of it.

I don't know too much about that side of things, but I believe a lot of it is automated these days, and it would seem likely that a computer's triggered a break at one of the times which were pre-set before the schedules changed because of extra time. In some regions, that was over-ridden manually very quickly and viewers only lost a few seconds of the match. For whatever reason (who knows - could be a computer or human problem), that hasn't happened down here. The fact that a lot of people said the channel crashed completely would suggest that there has been a fairly catastrophic systems failure.

So when they referred to it as a 'technical problem', it's more than likely that was the truth, rather than just covering someone's back. Rest assured, if it was a human cock-up, everyone that's baying for a sacking would probably get it.. whatever the critics may have you believe, ITV take the business very seriously.