amount of adverts on itv4 a disgrace

carrock

watched the highlights on itv4 thus

1900hrs- program start
1912 hrs- advert
1917hrs- resume
1921 hrs- adverts
1925- resume
1932- adverts
1937- resume

and so on

Now OK cycling is a minority sport, but putting 20 mins of adverts in a 60minute program is a disgrace- wonder how the live programs will pan out, but as far as the highlights are concerned they cram the middle of the highlights with adverts

One ad break at 20 mins and 40 mins of a 1 hour program used to be the norm

Doobz

Its free,, what do you expect?

k2rider

exactly!

andyp

It's free to you but it's not free to ITV, hence the adverts.

amd-sco

Not too many ad's on the live coverage, it was pretty good actually - although I've never watched pay TV (BBC excepted) so can't comment on how it is on Sky or Eurosport.

afx237vi

Just record it, wait 20 minutes, then start watching and FF through the adverts. Simple.

dulldave

Yeah, who do you think you are having an opinion about a product? Who do you think you are, a consumer or something?

I agree. The live programme had tediously long ad breaks. Still, I'd rather it was on with lots of ads than not on at all.

blazing_saddles

Just for the record, I usually record Eurosport on hard drive, so as to archive big stage races.
To do this I take out the ad breaks.
By the time I had 43 minutes of race, I had removed 6, yes 6, ad breaks.
It was much the same throughout, until the final 45 minutes, when they went ad free, as per usual.

Something we have to live with, I'm afraid.

dilemna

Couple of years ago I complained to ITV about the timing of their ads always when the riders reached a summit in the mountains ITV would cut to ads :evil: so we never saw any footage of the descents and the ads were always for too bl00dy long as when we were returned to the race the riders were on a boring flat bit which would mean more boring info from Phil and Phil and then back to riders climbing !!!!

Anyway I actually got a response from a producer saying that they had contractual obligations to their advertisers and sponsors who were in effect bank rolling the production so tough.

I countered by saying I'm sure their advertisers/sponsors wouldn't be very happy with ITV if they thought the network were alienating potential customers by poorly timing the adverts thus ruining the enjoyment of the programme for viewers and thus not seeing associating their name with a good time. Two days later we got some down hill footage !!!!

AndyRubio

Watch Eurosport instead.

stagehopper

carrock wrote:

One ad break at 20 mins and 40 mins of a 1 hour program used to be the norm

When?

It's been (roughly) ad break at 14 mins, 28 mins, 42 mins for a couple of decades at least followed by another ad break at the end of the programme before ther start of the next.

bazbadger

Eurosport is much better.

Also, the quality of the ads on Eurosport is vastly superior ....

Gems such as 'spin the bike shoe game' (what on earth were they trying to imply there??), and the 'Man from ASTANA says "buy SIDI" ' .

Ad breaks much, much shorter

pedro118118

Eurosport aren't much better - seem to recall at the Giro they cut to an advertisement break just as Wiggo was completing his (winning) ride in the prologue?!

I simply Sky+ (other hard disk digital recorders available at all good retailers) it and flick +30 the adverts...........especially that new Wiggle one - that is dire!

RichN95.

bazbadger wrote:

Eurosport is much better.

Also, the quality of the ads on Eurosport is vastly superior ....

Gems such as 'spin the bike shoe game' (what on earth were they trying to imply there??), and the 'Man from ASTANA says "buy SIDI" ' .

Ad breaks much, much shorter

"Enjoy Shooting" is my new favourite. Well made ad, but such an odd 'product'

rdt

I presume ITV4's ad breaks coincide with the US Versus station's breaks who ITV get their coverage from.

Ofcom rules specify that ITV4 can have a maximum of 12 minutes of adverts per hour, but that excludes sponsorship credits and programme and channel promotions...

For me, ITV4's live coverage is borderline unwatchable. On each ad break I'd switch to Wimbledon. I'd flick back, only to see that adverts were still running. After doing this a few times I learned it was easier to just stay watching Nadal. Might be closer run this week, when Celebrity Pressure Cooker is the oppo.

Squaggles

I agree with those saying watch it on Eurosport

Eurosport international is available for free with English commentary on analogue satelite if anybody has an old dish and decoder

carrock

Squaggles wrote:

I agree with those saying watch it on Eurosport

Eurosport international is available for free with English commentary on analogue satelite if anybody has an old dish and decoder

If i could i would- however like millions of others I'm on freeview

nic_77

Without the adverts there would be no freely available ITV4 coverage... so quit moaning.
Yes Eurosport is an option, but it's almost impossible to record their highlights show because it won't sit still in the schedule.

jimmythecuckoo

I am enjoying the Wiggle and Chain Reaction adverts though...

dulldave

nic_77 wrote:

Without the adverts there would be no freely available ITV4 coverage... so quit moaning.
Yes Eurosport is an option, but it's almost impossible to record their highlights show because it won't sit still in the schedule.

The OP is not suggesting that ITV4 should show the programme without ads, he's saying there are too many of them. It would have been nice if you could grasp this simple difference before responding in such an arsey manner.

We all know how TV works mate so quit patronising. Eurosport manage to put out their show with fewer ads so you'd think that ITV could manage it as well.

nic_77

Who's being ars*y now?

It's unrealistic to expect a free channel to cover the cycling without using advertising to recoup their costs. The adverts could be shorter, but they'd have less income, and we'd get less coverage. That's not me being patronising it's fact.

Eurosport is not free and therefore have another income stream. Eurosport have a wider audience throughout the day and therefore presumably can afford a more balanced advertising profile - ITV4 have no other big shows pulling in large audience figures elsewhere in the schedule.

As someone who has grown up watching the tour through ITV's highlights show, I'm delighted that there is more free coverage than ever before (with the live footage from every stage this year). I don't see why anyone would see this as a reason to complain... even if they have to sit through (or more likely fast forward through) a few ad breaks.

Cleat Eastwood

dulldave wrote:

nic_77 wrote:

We all know how TV works mate so quit patronising. Eurosport manage to put out their show with fewer ads so you'd think that ITV could manage it as well.

But it appears you don't know how tv works. Itv and eurosport for that matter dont sell adverts, they sell air time. Thi sair time is bought my advertising companies and used to sell their advertising concepts to clients based on the demographic of the audience they know theycan reach in a given TV slot.

So eurosports ads are fewer because the demographic for eurosport, ie the advertisers target audience is verrrry narrow.

ITV on the other hand has a large demographic, even the worst of show will cross boundaries from A to D audiences in varying degrees. It makes commercial sense for ITV therefore to sell that space at a premium knowing that any ad will reach the widest social sections.

Incidentally, at one time the most sort after ad slot for TV was.....the half time ad break for the 10 ten oclock news as the news was watched by the greatest number of social classes A(high income) to D(low skille/manual).

The most sort after slot at the moment, and has been for a wee while, is the ad break between Coronation street, which is the reason why extending the programme to an hour on occassion makes commercial sense.

You are right on the point about fewer ads though, given that ITV4 and especially its TDF coverage is aimed a clique audience willing to watch an entire race you would have thought repeating an ad every half hour over a longer time period would have the same effect as showing a bunch of ads in a short space of time.

Seems were paying the price for liking cycling too much.

jimmcdonnell

2 Tours ago ITV4 responed with a breakdown of their ad schedule - at the time they spread their obligations by having frequent ads early in a show, allowing the last 45-50 mins of a live stage to be ad-free.

This year does seem to have more frequent, longer and intrusive ad breaks though - can anyone be bothered to record the time and duration of them? I doubt they'd alter their programming in response to emails, but they might explain it again. Let's face it, the almighty $$ (or ££/€€ but I suspect ultimately $$) will always win over viewer wants - after all, we just consume ITV's output we don't directly contribute their coffers (or bonuses).

I watch with Eurosport player on my computer and ITV4 on tv, switching between the 2 as appropriate. Often the ad breaks are dictated by the live feed though, it seems - they regularly coincide on ITV and Eurosport.

As for the amusing ads, I always wondered what the subtext to Bertie's 'spin the shoe' game ad was, and his new white-tie-and-tails shoe-thrusting one isn't much better. And the 'enjoy shooting' is strange but makes me chuckle too.

giant_man

this is why i watch Eurosport, not some commercial station like ITV4 with their constant advertising.

Beatmaker

giant mancp wrote:

this is why i watch Eurosport, not some commercial station like ITV4 with their constant advertising.

Eurosport IS a commercial station, as pointed out above due to their niche audience they are probably sruggling to fill the maximum alloted ad time. if they would they could believe me. ITV are using their maximum airtime allowed for ads and this amount hasn't changed for years. IIRC Channel 4 are the worst for over running alloted ad time.