ITV's Euro 2012 Disaster

ITV Audience Outrage

Now that the Euro 2012 football championship has finished, I'm looking at the television coverage and presentation of the broadcasters. In the UK, there were two channels broadcasting the Euros, they were the BBC and ITV, I will look at ITV.
ITV, like the BBC had good and bad aspects to their coverage. I thought ITV were poor in a number of areas. Firstly, the need for Ad breaks, is an advantage for the BBC, Ad breaks are bad enough however the ones in between the end of the national anthems and kick off are particularly bad as they ruin the atmosphere for all TV audiences. The next area I think ITV could have improved was in the choice of pundits. Adrian Chiles got his usual slating from the viewers, he was partnered by the steely Roy Keane, whose bad temperament got even worse when Ireland left the competition. Jamie Carragher represented the English contingent of the broadcasting team, he made valid contributions however i would question is the thick scouse accent suitable for TV? This represented a problem similar to Cheryl Cole's Geordie accent on the American X Factor. Roberto Martinez provided a Spanish perspective on the tournament, tactically understands the game very well but I would question his ability to convey this effectively to the TV audience. Gareth Southgate, was the stand out pundit for ITV, he was able to give clear concise summaries of games and understands the game well, I am surprised ITV didn't choose Southgate to appear for the final. Patrick Vieira enjoyed a spell as ITV pundit during the group stages, his relationship with his ITV colleague Roy Keane proved to be a talking point for many, who remembered their relationship with one another on the pitch.
I think ITV having their studio situated in Warsaw, unlike the BBC was good, you got a real atmosphere of the tournament from seeing fans from all over the world supporting their nation. Seeing the scenes in the host country helped promote a good image of the nation after the early negative image that was portrayed of Ukraine and Poland.

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