ITV's Sports Coverage is Rubbish

Hello Readers and thanks for coming along today to witness me spitting feathers about the useless sports coverage provided by ITV. (if your not from the UK this might not make a whole lot of sense but now that you are here you may as well read it anyway! (like myself it is quite short)

I was going to watch the international football (or soccer to some people) highlights of England v Belarus on ITV. The opening credits played and their gimp of a presenter lead us towards the sports footage with a nonchalant grin. I was perturbed to discover that the footage was in the old 4:3 format which makes the picture a small box on a widescreen TV. This made my blood boil. I do not want to watch sport of any description (highlights or live action) in a small box in the centre of my screen with large black borders down either side. I waited to see if they corrected this error before the actual game footage went out, but they didn't and I had to switch it off...

This has happened many times before with ITV and I have made complaints directly to them. I've never seen other channels make this mistake as they obviously stipulate the correct format as part of the contract. ITV probably don't even know if they are buying or broadcasting footage filmed in colour!

These clowns at ITV Sports made a right old fuss when Setanta refused to sell them highlights to Croatia v England (for peanuts) a few weeks ago. Looking at the poor and unsatisfactory way in which ITV are presenting sports highlights of major events they should not be allowed to have them in my view. All England football matches should be added to the list of protected rights and given directly to the BBC (who are not that much better to be honest). ITV have already ruined Formula 1 (Motor Racing) by outbidding the BBC for the rights. They consequently stuffed the live action with advert breaks to cover the cost of their excessive greed. The commentator (James Allen) will now tell me what has happened during a break in a live event that I am actually watching! That's just great, thanks ITV.

In addition ITV have found themselves some of the worst sports presenters since televised sports began. The anchor man for the football highlights (who is not on TV enough to know or remember his name) is absolutely abysmal. I am just astounded that they managed to find a character more camp and clown like than the BBC's Mark Lawrenson.

My message to you ITV Sport, is to broadcast sport properly or not at all. If you are looking at the stats and wondering why few people bothered watching these highlights...you need to read my blog more often.

Keith Doughnut

Do we need to start a "Say NO to ITV Sports " Campaign?