I ended up watching the FA Cup Final for the first time in a few years. I used to watch this every year - even if it involved teams that I wasn't particularly interested in. I suppose it's one of those national events that one feels compelled to take an interest in. I enjoy a game of football on the TV even with my current disenchantment with the professional game but since it involved a team I have actually followed and, at one time, regularly attended games for I thought I'd make the extra effort. And an extra effort it is, because since the games are shown on ITV1 my local broadcaster, STV, have decided in their wisdom that a football match is not suitable for those of us North of the Border. As well as the FA Cup they also won't show England internationals. Now, if the alternative was to show Scottish internationals and Scottish Cup games I would be more than happy. However, the alternative is, more often than not, to show ancient repeats of Poirot, dreadful B-movie flops or other unmitigated crap.
My first attempt at finding a way of watching the match
was to check German TV. Now an easy escape clause for picking up ITV1 in
Scotland is to use a satellite feed but as our dish points to 19.2 degrees
rather than the usual 28.2 it would involve a visit up a ladder and box
retuning that fills me with utter dread. However, I did find that the German
channel Sport1 were showing FA cup games. Result! Except that as the FA had
moved to a late kick off and this clashed with a German handball game so they
were only showing the last 25 minutes live. They did have the whole game on
their pay-TV channel but this is not an option for me. Next call - the pub.
I checked out my local pubs and at least two were
definitely showing the game (including our local football club's bar!) This
looked like a good bet and had the added advantage that I could enjoy a pint as
well as having the company of fellow football fans / alcoholics to watch and
trade banter with. This is also another advantage of living back in
civilisation: pub football can be enjoyed as the God of beer intended and not
sipping coke or worrying about how to get 5 miles home in an inebriated state.
This plan was going well until I stupidly (and mistakenly) volunteered to
provide on-call support for work. The extra bit of overtime is welcome but it
really buggers up the weekend. So I had to go for plan C - streaming football
on the internet.
Now watching football over the internet is a dodgy
business for the most part - mainly due to the dubious legality of many of the
feeds. However, with this game being shown on ITV1 I was, at least, able to use
their official website. It could be worse, but having used it for the duration
of the game it could be a whole lot better as well. For a start, it insists on
showing 2 adverts before it cuts into the coverage. I can't really complain
about this as it is a free service but it is really annoying on the 2nd or 3rd
time of restarting the streaming. Of course, I only had to do this due to the intermittent
quality of the service. On occasion it would jitter and sometimes jump. The
first time this happened I missed the first goal (which is par for the course for
ITV sports coverage anyway). Even when it was running the quality of the
picture is poor with very pixelated images. It's certainly nowhere near the
crystal images from iPlayer or Lovefilm but I expect the FA Cup final is going
to be one of their most heavily subscribed feeds.
I ended up watching the last 25 minutes back on Sport1 in
German. Aside from the fact that the commentators were far more likeable, the
quality of the picture was superb. I think I also saw the best part of the game
on TV. Overall, whilst the result of the game was a little disappointing for me,
I can't fault either side for the spectacle and the deciding save from Petr Čech
was outstanding. However, it got me thinking. I ended up going to a great
amount of effort to see this game when the obvious future for this is already
with me in the terms of the Smart TV and the likes of LoveFilm. I would have
happily paid a little extra to receive this match and even without payment,
there is a great opportunity for internet TV to make good money from targeted
advertising. LoveFilm is owned by Amazon and they know a great deal about my
buying habits. They could have made the game available and then run adverts for
Jazz Albums, vacuum cleaners (which I have been searching for recently) or all
matter of items which they may know I would be interested in. I find the spat
between ITV and STV to be childish but is this really just the remnants of a
20th century television model?
Anyway, and I've checked for the Hibs vs Hearts Cup
final. It will be on BBC One in Scotland - with no adverts, either!
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