What Did Football Ever Do to ITV?

By: Daryl | February 5th, 2009

This is what the thrilling climax to Everton’s extra-time FA Cup win over Liverpool looked like on ITV last night. After two goalless hours you should have been rewarded with seeing young Dan Gosling score a dramatic late winner for Everton. But instead you saw that slightly creepy German car commercial where the guy fights himself.

Even worse, they cut away from the car commercial before the narrative had finished. Did the German engineer win the fight against himself? Was it him that scored the winner for Everton? I guess we’ll never know for sure.

Clearly ITV is on a mission to destroy football. Because no one can get so many many things so very very wrong without doing it deliberately.

They nearly bankrupted half the lower league teams in England with the ITV Digital debacle (which should have instantly banned them from showing so much as a Sunday league kickabout for at least 100 years), and then they somehow managed to make Saturday night Premier League highlights unappealing with “The Premiership” and Townsend’s Tactics Truck (which at least disproved the theory that alliteration doesn’t always equal entertainment.)

Even Fantasy Football League stopped being funny the second it was broadcast on ITV. And now they’ve managed to cock up the FA Cup as well.

At some point, someone at ITV has to look in the mirror and say: “Those Leeds fans were right.”

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Category: World Football

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Dan

Can't agree with Rob. ITV are shocking. Analysis is a misnomer for what they provide, it's simply a couple of sentences inbetween the ad breaks. Their commentary is awful, often biased or ill-informed nonense, so much so that I have to turn the radio on instead.

Since the FA sold their soul to the highest bidder in regards to TV rights, it is pretty funny that they have got what they deserved. Their match selections in the last round were absolutely apalling (how Kettering-Fulham wasn't shown is beyond me) and their highlights were atrocious. Those cameras seemed like they were held by a drunk with a mobile phone. Even last night, they showed the final scores from the other games without warning completely defeating the object of their own highlights programme.

Both Sky and the BBC cover football a hell of a lot better. One can only hope that the Cup finds itself back there soon.
Matt

A similar thing happened when Celtic took on Dundee United in the CIS Cup during penalties. The final was 11-10 on penalties, but when Boruc saved one of the penalties, BBC switched from BBC 2 to BBC 1 right before Glen Loovens was going to take the possible game winning penalty (he was stopped and it continued). Those watching on TV were left to scramble for their remotes and those watching online were....well screwed.
Rob

Thing about ITV is, I don't think its that bad. Sure sometimes it feels like a cheap kareoke version of Sky's coverage, but other than the cheapness its not usually that bad. Townsend and Earle are rubbish of course, but so are Shearer and Lawrro or Redknapp and Souness.

Last night though, that was pretty unforgivable. They already have a bad rep due to the country's beeb bias, but they well and truly cemented their position as second best now.
Drabik

It was okay on ITVHD :D. But I would have been so annoyed if I missed it.
Wayne

Should have shown porn like US TV. I really wouldn't have cared then.