Way, waaay back in March 2007, I commented on the news that ITV had obtained the rights from the BBC for terrestrial FA Cup games. Warning everyone that the coverage would “suck” (to use a technical term), I told people that they should expect:
…piss-poor presenting, annoying commentry, average analysis…oh, and ad breaks, of course.
Little did I know how much the coverage would suck…and, in a rather suprising move, that ITV would decide to do all of the above at the same time. Like this week, when they decided to switch to an ad break during extra time of the Everton – Liverpool FA Cup fourth round replay, missing the only goal of the game.
But maybe there’s something positive to take from this cock up; perhaps ITV have actually stumbled across a new type of broadcasting. People’s attention spans are getting shorter and shorter these days and, although there’s lots of channels to choose from, getting from one to another to start watching something else involves…pressing a button. That’s hard. So why not just show lots of programming at the same time? Start by showing Dancing On Ice, then just cut to the middle section of the news, then to Phillip and Fern giggling for a couple of minutes on This Morning, then Loose Women gabbing on about some old crap, and finish it off with a bitchfight on Corrie, before going back to someone saying their goodbyes on Dancing On Ice because they’ve just been voted off.
Alternatively, they could always just interrupt their ad breaks with live goals.
Here’s the football/ad break mistake, “as it happened”:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qUx3RPdlcM&feature=related]