Advanced Television

ITV drops World Cup ball

June 15, 2010

Robert Green, England's clumsy keeper, wasn't the only one fumbling the basics in the USA game; viewers to ITV's new HD channel got a Kia car ad four minutes in and, therefore, missed the opening goal. No such luck with the disastrous second goal. Last year, ITV viewers missed the winning goal in a Liverpool-Everton FA Cup tie when coverage cut to an advert.

Meanwhile ITV’s interactive “watch and chat” service ITV Live letting fans keep up with the opening match of the World Cup online also ran into problems, with some unable to log on .

The number of online viewers watching ITV.com’s live streaming for the 1-1 draw between South Africa and Mexico grew rapidly to 90,000, picking up quickly soon after half time, ITV said. But ITV Live ran into problems. The initiative allows viewers with laptops to customise the ITV.com live stream with a range of interactive elements from a chat service – which can link to Facebook – to polls, quizzes and statistics on teams and players.

“We had a problem with our CDN [content distribution network] which was preventing new members joining the stream,” said ITV.

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