Highlights on TV in 10 minutes.

[southbank1871]

Absolutely no surprise, but completely pathetic coverage from ITV, bunch of pcunts.

I've got a strange feeling we're going to turn Villa over in the QFs.

[Silver Fox]

No surprises at the epic fail that is ITV's coverage, not just of us but of the whole set of matches last night, regardless of CL coverage would any other channel have failed to show a single 5th round replay?

Still, at least I got to see my sources close to the club having a tear up with some brummie twats

[Rex]

Broadsheet coverage is still the aside it always was. The same applies to the TV coveage. Almost a filler or an afterthought. Sad but hey, this is ReadingFC.

[Elmer Park]

Just watching the blink and you'll miss it goals.

Is that Howard who gave the ball away for the first?

What on earth was WBA's Meite (spelling) doing for the 1st and 3rd? Shocking play, but great for us. The 2nd and 3rd goals are really, really well worked.

It was Griffin who gave away the ball for the first West Brom goal but as you said that was more than matched by Meite's defending as well as our friend from the first ten seconds of the first match Zuiverloon who kindly gave the ball to Kebe once more for our second equaliser. Throw in Adam's clanger and it wasn't a good day defensively for either side.

[The Goat was fed]

Highlights seem to be taken off now.

If anybody finds the goals on the web now, can they shout? Inconsiderately, Gylfi scored down the wrong end and I'd like to see it again !

[papereyes]

http://www.101greatgoals.com/category/goals/england/

usually works

[toppy]

Highlights seem to be taken off now.

If anybody finds the goals on the web now, can they shout? Inconsiderately, Gylfi scored down the wrong end and I'd like to see it again !

Defo still working here - http://www.itv.com/sport/football/news/ ... 42334.html

you do have to watch an ad first

[georgerob]

Email to ITV:

Dear ITV,

I am a Reading fan and your FA Cup highlights on the 24 February 2010 for the West Brom vs Reading game was inadequate and terrible. All you show is four minutes of highlights from the game and that just included each of the goals, and the incident at the end of the game, which did not even show Mcanuff's red card. I stayed up all night to wait for these highlights and I could have missed them in a blink of an eye.

[SpaceCruiser]

Thought the highlights they showed was pathetically short and I wondered how the previous two games got shown more despite the advert breaks between each game.

Really poor showing, ITV.

[Maguire]

Well at least I got to see the goals. Some LOL defending for our second and third but good finishes nonetheless.

[Rawlie19]

Dear Sir/Madam

I don't normally write to complain about a programme, but after staying up late last night to watch your FA Cup Replay highlights package I feel that I have to.

You had 4 games to show, in an hours show. The first game came on, and it was Stoke vs Man City, a good tie, and we got 14 minutes of highlights to watch. Excellent job it was too. Then followed 3 minutes of analysis. Far too much in my opinion, but whatever.

Adverts, then the 2nd game. Aston Villa vs Wolves. Another good tie, and for this game we got 9 minutes. Fair enough, the game only went for the regular 90 minutes as opposed to the 120 minutes that the Stoke vs Man City game went to, and the highlights were well put together. 2 minutes of analysis followed, which I can't be bothered to watch, but ok.

More adverts, then the 3rd game of 4. West Brom vs Reading. The first game at the Madejski 10 days earlier was widely regarded as the best game of the round, not just of the 8 teams that were in contention tonight. This one, like the Stoke/Man City game, also went to extra time and had the most goals of any of the games. Surely we'd get to see plenty of footage... You set the expectations of this viewer when you just rushed straight into it without so much as a mention of the teams line-ups, let alone any screen graphics of them as you had done with the previous 2 games. We then got to see the 5 goals, and nothing else. AT ALL. No shots that hit the bar, no close chances from either side, just the goals. This took you an astonishing 2 minutes and 18 seconds... You then gave 1 minute and 20 seconds to the analysis (which were yet again soooo enlightening, and included 40 seconds of talking about the stewards). So for a game which lasted 120 minutes and had the most goals of the night you gave less time showing the game than you did talking about the Stoke vs Man City game. I sat watching the screen with an open mouth. I was stunned.

After more adverts we then got to see the final game of the night, Spurs vs Bolton. Oh look, team line-ups!!! Well done! 6 minutes of highlights followed. Not brilliant, but better than the 2 West Brom and Reading were graced with. More boring analysis and then off you could rush back to the Champions League.

I would love to hear your explanation for this. Why couldn't you divide up the allocated time into 4 fairly equal parts? I can understand you want to pick 2 games to show a bit more of in a normal highlights show that might include 10 or more games, but there were only 4 games last night so surely they could have all had the same respect shown to them rather than one of the games just being seen as an annoyance?

The excuse of "we only have so many cameras and we chose the first 2 games to be our main focus sending most of our cameras to those games thus allowing us more angles of footage to show" is not viable. I wouldn't have cared to have seen 6 or 7 minutes of highlights where only 2 or 3 cameras had been used. I assume you didn't turn them off to save hard drive space at random points during the game and were just lucky to have caught the 5 goals?

And don't get me started on the picture quality that your channel spews out on to our TV screens. The HD picture is (as you would expect from being HD) top quality, but the picture you get from the standard channel is the worst of any of the top broadcasters (BBC's 1 & 2, Four, Five, Sky... then we can include other smaller channels such as FX and their picture quality is so much better than yours you should be embarrassed). I don't relish watching the World Cup games that you are going to be allowed to show if I have any problems with picking up the HD signal.

So, I wait with bated breath for your reply.

[TFF]

Palace, not Wolves

[Dirk Gently]

Good luck with that one, but expect a glib auto-reply.

I hate to name drop, but I personally have told the CEO of The FA that the vast majority of football supporters hate the standard of football coverage delivered by ITV. In fairness to him, this particular contract was signed before he arrived, but even taking that into account, the simple fact is that The FA need to maximise their revenue so will go for the highest bidder for terrestrial rights.

If anyone needs to be blamed, I'll give you two likely candidates :

- Ken Bates, for completely screwing up the Wembley project with the result that The FA is on such financial straights,
- The numptie at the BBC who decided they'd commit most of their budget for live sports coverage bringing Formula 1 back to the Beeb. The end result is that ITV bid more and got the contract.

PS - I think you're also misunderstanding the business model of ITV. Their role in life is not in producing TV programmes that their audience want to watch, as most people think. Their whole business is actually about delivering viewers to their advertisers, which is a subtly different thing. Sadly, that means it's not the content that matters, it's how it can be sold, and a PL team full of expensive stars getting beaten will always be a bigger draw than a match with two CCC side, no matter how exciting. They want to get the mass of "neutrals" who want to watch names they know - not the relatively few who are interested in these particular teams and who probably already know the score.

[Rawlie19]

Palace, not Wolves

Oh yeah, not sure why I wrote Wolves... I knew it was Palace. Maybe cos I hate them as much.

[Sarah Star]

Good luck with that one, but expect a glib auto-reply.

Hands up who got this reply:

Thank you for your email regarding the FA Cup Highlights

I can confirm that your comments have been noted here at ITV Viewer Services.

May I take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time to contact us here at ITV as we always welcome viewers’ feedback

[Maquisard]

Good luck with that one, but expect a glib auto-reply.

Hands up who got this reply:

Thank you for your email regarding the FA Cup Highlights

I can confirm that your comments have been noted here at ITV Viewer Services.

May I take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time to contact us here at ITV as we always welcome viewers’ feedback

Well, yes, I put my hand up. But it's nice to know that my message got through any language filters

[East End Lady]

Yeh I just got that reply too

[Rawlie19]

Nope, no reply. Mine was probably too long for them to be able to read in one sitting. Plus the mistake of saying 'Wolves' instead of 'Crystal Palace' probably threw them and they're still standing around scratching their heads (or arses) trying to figure out what programme I'm on about. Simpletons.

[georgerob]

Yeh I just got that reply too

same

[BF11]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6O7CUKCP

For anyone who wants to download the whole 4 minutes of highlights.