Besiktas 0 v 0 Arsenal

Besiktas 0 v 0 Arsenal

I scribble notes while watching the games. This one was available on ITV. One page covers it, in a large, angry-looking scrawl:

“ITV computer player = absolute rubbish. 0-0 all over this (at 10 minutes), despite what looks an attacking, open game.”

Nil-nil suits us fine, an away goal would've suited us better.

I have to admit liking Slaven Bilic, at lot.

Slaven Bilic is unusual, and effective.

The ITV computer player is typical of shoddy, second-rate Windows-oriented software, and ineffective.

For a start, there's the start:

I can access SKY through its Android app. One tap: SKY Go opens. Another and there's the Watch Now menu, a third accesses the Sport menu, and a 4^th leads to the details of the programme. A 5^th tap, and there we are. About ten seconds later, the programme is playing. It stops playing only when turned off or when the battery runs out.

Compare that simplicity with the ITV player, which engages and enrages the user through a labyrinthine (labyrinthine, eh, spelled it right first time, too – unheard of) series of dead ends and false trails. There's the watch ITV, watch the game, hit the game button...and...congratulations, you're at the textual live blog thingy. Start again. Now. How did I get it to work last time?

This isn't unique to the ITV player and football. It does the same when they have the rugby or any sport.

Emmerdale? Coming right up, guv'nor.

Live sport? Well. Now. You see. Here's the thing. There's all these hoops to jump through first. We need to ensure that you spend the first few minutes of the game you want to watch sitting in front of:

1. a series of adverts;
2. some more adverts;
3. the spinny buffering thing;
4. a short glimpse of the game;
5. more buffering;
6. another go with the search engine
7. further interminable adverts;
8. finally! Ha!
9. oh. No. more buffering...

A frustration of sporting events on ITV. That's the collective noun.

Maybe it's designed more for today's viewer, more adept at channel flicking, an approach that is: “I want to watch telly for a bit, what shall I watch” as opposed to my old-fashioned: “I want to watch X to the absolute exclusion of W, Y, Z and, in fact, anything else.

I have, in the past, found the P2P underground Internet viewing alternatives better, more stable, clearer and easier to access than the official terrestrial television versions. Which is absurd, by any yardstick.