Words Dept.: entry

For some reason I got annoyed about the ITV ad break during injury time goal mess-up last night although in retrospect I’m not sure why. It actually spared me the horror of seeing Everton score.

Everyone has surely suspected for a while that ITV was going to do something like that. Everything about its footy coverage is slightly amateurish and has been for a while. Throughout the match I felt the cameras seemed to be wandering all over the place with random crowd shots and player close-ups at important moments. And as for Clive Tyldesley…

The FA apparently “wants answers” but since it took ITV on as the highest bidding broadcaster, perhaps it only has itself to blame. (And the other winning bidder, Setanta, has its own problems related to its choice of satellite.)

The cause of the blunder, according to ITV, was an automated system that caused adverts to appear in their normal slots, regardless of the fact that the programme had overrun. Is it me, or does this sound vaguely bonkers? I know ITV’s share price has taken a battering but surely it can afford to pay someone to push a button, rather than rely on the whims of a malevolent idiot machine.

The Daily Mail is gloating excessively over the event. Clearly it has reorientated its disapproval away from the BBC and and towards its main rival since yesterday. Oddly, it may actually have a point.