ITV explains ad break timing
Discussion
festernath said:
You mean there was an F1 race today?
Shucks, I'm glad I decided to clean the Ceptic tank.
Maybe if you weren't cynical you wouldn't have missed the best race of the century. Was it a Sceptic tank you were trying to rid yourself from?
Not even close to being the best race this year imho.
Better than the F1 norm maybe but on recent form that's like saying a smack in the mouth is better than a kick in the nuts
festernath said:
Maybe if you weren't cynical you wouldn't have missed the best race of the century.
I wouldn't quite describe it as that.
Schumacher did drive a fantastic spell to move up to third. He was always going to get ahead of Button, whether on the track or via the remaining pit stop for each of them, although we did actually get to see one GP car going past another GP car on track in the last quarter of a race. That makes it stand out a bit already.
Having two cars actually racing over the last few laps was great - but surely a GP needs more than this to be a classic? Yes, exciting - but this should be happening more often than not.
I would have rated this as 'average' from even 10 years ago; its more a sign of the lack of real racing in the last 10 years that this stands out so much.
ITV
. They have two masters - those paying for the advertising, and those watching. Without those watching, they won't get the advertising, but they seem to be slaves to the advertisers and the contracts. There should be some freedom to maximise the attraction to viewers, which in turn should maximise the benefit to advertisers. This clearly did not.OK the ad timing was frustrating and they missed Button at the post race interviews (though I doubt that he would have said much of interest at the time.)
Fair play to Alonso for some excellent tactical driving that made the possibility of a pass at the end something the watching public and the TV companies (and presumably Bernie) could focus on.
But was it really the most exciting race in ages?
If so the highlight program should be a stunner, loads of overtaking and passing attempts ...
So we got about 10 mins on intro, the start and lap one were not bad - the Sato/Webber moments.
Then wait a while until Massa has a go at DC. (Massa's second successful attempt on DC was not shown in context in the highlights but was shown, with hand signal, at the end of the program.)
There was a very short section with Sato taking Webber and then the Wurz/Villeneuve involvement.
JV exiting the pits and getting in between the two Red Bull cars. Webber going wide at half distance.
Schumacher seemed to pass everyone except Button in the course of pit stops. Not a surprise given the aerodynamic issues bit not really great TV.
ANd that was about it for the highlights. Not a lot really.
In a 1 hour slot they managed to use up a few minutes at the start with ads. The first scheduled ad slot in the program seemed to go on for ever. The second lasted 5 minutes, the last 2 minutes of which were for promoting ITV - so no revenues there then.
The last slot was another 2 minutes purely promoting ITV and ITV programs. The the usual close out BS about football and more ads at the end.
So a 1 hour slot with about 15 minutes taken out for ads.
Precious little real action on the track. The last 7 laps of Alonso and Schumacher in full - presumably in part in response to complaints earlier in the day. So that's another 10 minutes used up.
Summary?
Alonso proved a lot about himself, Schumacher/Ferrari (or perhaps Bridgestone?) turned in another display that stands out from the rest of the stuff simply by being so different to the norm.
Other than that, and even including that for the last 10 laps or so, it was just another procession. Witness the lack of passing action in the highlights summary where they only need to find enough to fill about 20 minutes of track action anyway.
Perhaps that is why people are so upset by the poorly timed ad break. Naff all happens for over an hour so once you get to a queue with the shortest distance between cars it looks exciting.
I vote for removing wings completely. That should liven things up a bit and make it exciting enough, potentially, that there would never be any time for ads ...
Fair play to Alonso for some excellent tactical driving that made the possibility of a pass at the end something the watching public and the TV companies (and presumably Bernie) could focus on.
But was it really the most exciting race in ages?
If so the highlight program should be a stunner, loads of overtaking and passing attempts ...
So we got about 10 mins on intro, the start and lap one were not bad - the Sato/Webber moments.
Then wait a while until Massa has a go at DC. (Massa's second successful attempt on DC was not shown in context in the highlights but was shown, with hand signal, at the end of the program.)
There was a very short section with Sato taking Webber and then the Wurz/Villeneuve involvement.
JV exiting the pits and getting in between the two Red Bull cars. Webber going wide at half distance.
Schumacher seemed to pass everyone except Button in the course of pit stops. Not a surprise given the aerodynamic issues bit not really great TV.
ANd that was about it for the highlights. Not a lot really.
In a 1 hour slot they managed to use up a few minutes at the start with ads. The first scheduled ad slot in the program seemed to go on for ever. The second lasted 5 minutes, the last 2 minutes of which were for promoting ITV - so no revenues there then.
The last slot was another 2 minutes purely promoting ITV and ITV programs. The the usual close out BS about football and more ads at the end.
So a 1 hour slot with about 15 minutes taken out for ads.
Precious little real action on the track. The last 7 laps of Alonso and Schumacher in full - presumably in part in response to complaints earlier in the day. So that's another 10 minutes used up.
Summary?
Alonso proved a lot about himself, Schumacher/Ferrari (or perhaps Bridgestone?) turned in another display that stands out from the rest of the stuff simply by being so different to the norm.
Other than that, and even including that for the last 10 laps or so, it was just another procession. Witness the lack of passing action in the highlights summary where they only need to find enough to fill about 20 minutes of track action anyway.
Perhaps that is why people are so upset by the poorly timed ad break. Naff all happens for over an hour so once you get to a queue with the shortest distance between cars it looks exciting.
I vote for removing wings completely. That should liven things up a bit and make it exciting enough, potentially, that there would never be any time for ads ...
tonyhetherington said:
What happened to Schumacher at the beginning? They kept referring to the 'incident' or 'it would have been different it it hadn't have happened' etc, but I didn't see the beginning of the race?!
It wasn't the start of the race - but qualifying - he screwed up and out-braked himself causing a crap grid position.
Joe911 said:Worse than that. With the current regulations as they are, it meant Schumacher was running on flat-spotted tyres for the whole race.
What happened to Schumacher at the beginning? They kept referring to the 'incident' or 'it would have been different it it hadn't have happened' etc, but I didn't see the beginning of the race?!
fidgits said:In hindsight, yes you are correct... but not one person, including the ITV production team knew that at the time, hence the degree of anger being expressed. Imagine if they'd gone to adverts in injury time of the Champions League Final when the red devils turned it around to beat the sausage eaters.
as for the timing, yes it sucked, but hey, we didnt miss anything..
The annoying thing is, ITV have form here - remember Damon Hill chasing down Schumacher when he was with Arrows? Lap after lap, ever closer, pulls out for a pass and....adverts. That was God knows how many years back, and they're STILL pissing about with poorly timed breaks.
Either they get someone who understands F1 to schedule the ad breaks or they lose the coverage to someone who can do a better job. Look at the hour long build up to the race - padded with useless fluff and waffle. I don't bother with any of it now, I just turn on five minutes before the start.
Either they get someone who understands F1 to schedule the ad breaks or they lose the coverage to someone who can do a better job. Look at the hour long build up to the race - padded with useless fluff and waffle. I don't bother with any of it now, I just turn on five minutes before the start.
I dont mean to rub salt in your wounds fellas but this makes me appreciate the coverage we get here.
Oh we get the ITV commentary, but everytime you guys go to an ad break, we still get the race, just without James "Wally" Allen hamming it up.
We didnt get one single ad break for the entire race last night!
We usually get 2, both about 90 sec or less.
Finally an advantage to having to watch the F1 in the middle of the night!
Oh we get the ITV commentary, but everytime you guys go to an ad break, we still get the race, just without James "Wally" Allen hamming it up.
We didnt get one single ad break for the entire race last night!
We usually get 2, both about 90 sec or less.
Finally an advantage to having to watch the F1 in the middle of the night!
ITV solve advert dilemma ?
After receiving a barrage of criticism for chopping the end of the San Marino Grand Prix in favour of yet another advertisement break, the provider of the British F1 broadcast, ITV, have revealed how they plan to cover the sport in the future. Said ITV's Head of Marketing, Ronald Spunker, ‘What we plan to do is actually reverse the present format, and show the Grand Prix in quick snippets around the adverts, rather than the other way round'. Mr Spunker went on, ‘This would mean that we could have two hours of prime time advertising, with five three minute breaks to see what is happening in the race’. Quite how this will affect viewing figures is not known, but if ITV can get 11 million people to watch Ant and Dec sod about on a Saturday night, then surely anything is possible.
Rob
www.grandprixdiary.com
After receiving a barrage of criticism for chopping the end of the San Marino Grand Prix in favour of yet another advertisement break, the provider of the British F1 broadcast, ITV, have revealed how they plan to cover the sport in the future. Said ITV's Head of Marketing, Ronald Spunker, ‘What we plan to do is actually reverse the present format, and show the Grand Prix in quick snippets around the adverts, rather than the other way round'. Mr Spunker went on, ‘This would mean that we could have two hours of prime time advertising, with five three minute breaks to see what is happening in the race’. Quite how this will affect viewing figures is not known, but if ITV can get 11 million people to watch Ant and Dec sod about on a Saturday night, then surely anything is possible.
Rob
www.grandprixdiary.com
robsinfield said:
ITV solve advert dilemma ?
After receiving a barrage of criticism for chopping the end of the San Marino Grand Prix in favour of yet another advertisement break, the provider of the British F1 broadcast, ITV, have revealed how they plan to cover the sport in the future. Said ITV's Head of Marketing, Ronald Spunker, ‘What we plan to do is actually reverse the present format, and show the Grand Prix in quick snippets around the adverts, rather than the other way round'. Mr Spunker went on, ‘This would mean that we could have two hours of prime time advertising, with five three minute breaks to see what is happening in the race’. Quite how this will affect viewing figures is not known, but if ITV can get 11 million people to watch Ant and Dec sod about on a Saturday night, then surely anything is possible.
Rob
www.grandprixdiary.com
You appear to have done a PC edit on the text of the above - you edited out 'Geordie tossers'.
Just received this from ITV...(I e-mailed their duty office). It's obviously a standard reply as they received so many, however, good that they replied I feel:
ITV said:
ITV would like to apologise for cutting to a break at the climax of yesterday's Grand Prix and we are sorry that it affected your enjoyment of the race.
As you are probably aware, we always try to cut to adverts during the least contentious parts of the action and update viewers with anything they may have missed as soon as possible after the commercials.
ITV is contractually obliged to include a certain number of adverts during the race - we are a commercial channel and Formula One is a commercial sport.
On Sunday, the race was very exciting throughout and it was a tough call as to when to cut to adverts - for example, we didn't want to interrupt the race when Jensen Button was in the lead. Our production team make these decisions and have done so since we started F1 coverage in 1997, by and large they get it right.
In the event we delayed taking the break until the last moment but had to do so with three laps to go. Yesterday's race was a particularly difficult one to call as Michael Schumacher caught Fernando Alonso so spectacularly. It appeared that he would take the lead at any moment and we were reluctant to cut away from the action.
Unfortunately, the pass moment never came and we were forced to take the scheduled break too close to the finish. Coverage returned for the final lap to see Schumacher and Alonso battling for the lead. We know it is of little consolation but their positions didn't change hands during the advert break and we screened the final three laps in their entirety after the race finished.
Nonetheless, we are well aware that the timing of this advert upset many viewers and can only apologise to you again.
Whilst the strategy for cutting to adverts is not an exact science, we will do our utmost to ensure that this scenario does not happen again in future and your comments have been passed on to the production team plus the Controller of ITV Sport.
Thank you for writing in to us.
From the Duty Office, ITV
the thing is though, WHY are ITV obliged to show adverts during the race.
When they show soccer, they have ad breaks before kick off, in the half-time and after the final whistle..
Okay, F1 doesnt have a half-time - but i fail to see how they are obliged to interuppt the race 5 or 6 times..
I mean, they offer the slots to the companies, so if they didnt offer 'while the race is running' they wouldnt have to interuppt it?
When they show soccer, they have ad breaks before kick off, in the half-time and after the final whistle..
Okay, F1 doesnt have a half-time - but i fail to see how they are obliged to interuppt the race 5 or 6 times..
I mean, they offer the slots to the companies, so if they didnt offer 'while the race is running' they wouldnt have to interuppt it?
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