..a message from our sponsors

As some of you know, I'm impatient. And among the many, many things that aggravate my impatience gland is TV adverts. Not the ads themselves even though they're mostly drivel, no, it's the waiting for what you were actually watching to come back on. It could be that my attention span and short term memory are conspiring against me but it's not uncommon for me to be watching something, an ad break come on, I start channel hopping only to find something else and completely forget that I was already in the middle of watching something else. (I say 'middle' but adverts often appear only a few minutes into a program).

One area that irks me more than others is when watching live sport. In particular, Formula One and Boxing. ITVs coverage of Amir Khan's last fight was woeful. Literally the second the bell went at the end of a round, they cut to an ad break, and didn't return until the bell went again to signify the start of the next round. It was like this for every single round. It was appalling coverage. Then they topped that by actually missing the first round of a following live fight, choosing to show me adverts instead, and cutting to the fight midway through the second round.

But, as bad as that was, it's consistently beaten every time by their F1 coverage. Most races this year have had their post race drivers interviews cut. Just not shown. At all.

For the last race, in Spain, I sat with a stopwatch. Not to time the cars, but to see how much we missed.

In summary, 14% of the race was missed due to ad breaks. (Around 9 laps at a decent pace)

There were 5 breaks, totaling just over 14 minutes, in a race that lasted 101 minutes. (Easy maths there)

That equates to missing around 12.5 minutes of a 90 minute football match.

Yes, I appreciate that adverts are their primary source of revenue, but they can't advertise 'Live Coverage' then not show the whole thing. I'd rather they pause the 'live' coverage whilst they show their damn ads. At least we wouldn't miss anything that way.