ITV Discussion Thread

At the beginning of the second half, we had the phone number graphic at the bottom of the screen covering the score and commentators graphic despite the phone number also being in the top right corner too.

It is interesting that they can have the text details on the advertising hoarding without all the terms and conditions nonsense. It just says "Help save a child's life, text donate to 70442 to make a gift of £5 now". That is all it really needs.

EDIT: Looks like a bit of an overrun too this evening.

EDIT: Did anyone see what ITV4 did while they were waiting for the ITV1 programme to finish?

EDIT: The ITV4 (pre-recorded) CA announcement was for the following programme, Men Brewing Badly, which may contain bad language.

Sound problems on the ITV4 show now. This looks like it could be an interesting programme if you like cheap under rehearsed television, and I know I do.

Due to the Soccer Aid 2010 programme overrunning on ITV1, the follow up programme on ITV4 that was due to start at 22:00, could not start until around 22:15. ITV4 messed this up quite badly.

At 22:00, they played out the ITV4 ident with a CA introducing Soccer Aid 2010 : Extra Time. This was followed by the sponsorship credit. We were left with the last frame of this for a few seconds before they put a fault caption over it for a few more seconds.

They then cut to an ITV2 caption (this was on ITV4 don't forget) for around a minute.

After someone realised they were putting the wrong caption out, they changed it to an ITV4 one and left it on screen for a whole five minutes.

This was all done in complete silence.

They then played out a few ITV1 promos before playing out the ITV4 ident at around 10:15 with the CA introducing Men Brewing Badly which was actually the programme on after Soccer Aid 2010:Extra Time. The opening titles to Soccer Aid 2010:Extra Time then played out, the sponsor credit was not played again.

The programme itself suffered from various sound problems. Mainly broadcasting the wrong feed at the wrong time.

I bet BBC One thought they had the award for the worse handled unexpected on-air event in the bag with their The Big Question faults this morning, but I think ITV4 have just beaten them.

I see The Zone is on ITV Channel Islands this evening even though the EPG says it should be Nightwatch. So far, The Zone has just been QVC, there was no introduction from Mr. and Mrs. Underwood.

I have come across this on the BBC website, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/entertainment_enl_1275913009/html/1.stm What it linked to, as there no story linked to it

'The Big Picture' - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/default.stm

They usually have no related story.

Not trying to make excuses here, but ITV4 is a digital channel with just about everything pre-recorded and set up in advance which is why the error sting went out in silence as there was no continuity announcer their to say anything like there would have been on ITV1, also explains why when the programme actually started, the wrong ident played out.

Can't really explain the ITV2 sting showing though, that is weird!

You can't really compare this error to BBC One. I didn't see the BBC One error but they have live announcements, more people handling play out etc,.

A fairer comparison would be E4, which is also a small budget channel with everything largely automated, but Channel 4 had the sense to invest in a live announcer for the station in the evening. Some stuff with the playout systems fell over last Wednesday evening, and the CA certainly proved his worth for the rest of the evening with impeccable comic scripting.

I doesn't matter if the channel has a live CA or not. It is about being prepared. This was a football match overrunning, its hardly unexpected. They had plenty of warning and it was nice even 15 minute overrun, so I'm sure they could have planned ahead and made a filler available. There was obviously someone at ITV4 last night to put the captions to air, I'm sure given the right material (a couple of pre-recorded idents and a few fillers of various lengths) they could have kept the channel on air in a more professional manner. They could have even put the overrunning ITV1 show to air.

On the other hand, who cares? How many people were actually watching ITV4 at that time? Anyone interested in Soccer Aid 2010 would have been watching ITV1. I only watched because I wanted to see how they handled the overrun. To be honest, I would have been disappointed if they had handled it "better".

I remember something similar happening to an ITV digital channel in the past and on that occasion they broadcast a whole bunch of weird and wonderful slides before they found the right one.

And E4 certainly has it's experience of breakdowns.

On the theme of spin-off programmes, really annoys me when the spin-off show begins before the main show has actually ended - it's happened every night this week with Britain's Got More Talent.

I'm sure it annoys the sponsor too as most viewers will turn over before the sponsor credit on ITV1 and after the sponsor credit has played on ITV2/3/4. If the spin-off show is ready to air before the main show has finished, probably the best thing to do is for the spin-off programme to play out the end of the ITV1 programme including credits.

This Morning had trouble coming back from the break at 12:15 just now. On DSAT Meridian we got 7 seconds of black screen before starting half way through a This Morning promo. When the went back to the studio, there was a bit of picture break up and Phillip Schofield commented that they only just made it back on air.

Yes, the systems that store the various media aren't totally seperate. With the smaller channels there might be one operator looking after several channels at the same time, even totally unconnected ones.

It's fairly easy to put something intended for one channel on another, especially in an emergency or unplanned situation

And it has been done before, like when BBC Parliament was played uot on Living TV. It's easier to do it with the various ITV channels, as the names are similar, ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4