Dear ITV. Why Is The ITVPlayer So Terrible?

When ITV announced plans to start charging people for specific online content last year, there were a few eyebrows raised in the OTB office. Whether you enjoy the channel’s programming or not, the idea was made laughable by the fact that the ITVPlayer is easily the poorest of all the ‘players’. As such, the idea of paying for it was about as enticing as the idea of forking out to use one of those unspeakably grotty public toilets in Kings Cross train station.

Adam Crozier and his cronies (crozies?) have quietly put the aforementioned plan on hold, but they don’t seem to have done much to improve the quality of their online viewing portal, which sadly, is still rubbish. The excessive adverts (far more than you find on 4OD) don’t help but what really grinds our gears is the way the content stops, starts and spends ages buffering. The image quality isn’t great either. Why ITV don’t pull their fingers out and improve their service is a bit of a mystery, because with more and more people watching their TV online, they’re lagging behind the competition.

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Masterchef: Jack of All Charades, Master of None

*Reader warning. This is an official rant.. and a particularly ranty one at that. Besides, some of us at OTB actually quite like Masterchef*

We are in series eight of MasterChef. And like the inevitable coming of the final dawn before a soul-devouring, bile-spitting, pan-frying apocalypse, it is terrifying.

This is the eighth batch of petrified innocents sweating in eerily starched aprons – the uniform of the damned – who are publicly humiliated, having their very dreams and lifeblood spat back into their desperate eyes by “discerning diners”; the eighth time traditional cornerstone European dishes are recklessly reinvented, hideously subverted with a controversial consommé conceived in the last excruciating seconds of the challenge – a frenzied purgatory preceding judgment before a malevolent coalition of lip-smacking overlords.

The eighth moment the very essence of the human condition is flipped like a hot-smoked salmon soufflé omelette in John Torode’s hauntingly recurring premonition “whoever wins, it will change their life”, the twisted grammar a harrowing symbol of the boiling pit of hell-fire (brought to a simmer) that is life after losing MasterChef; the eighth time that fat, bald bloke thinks that the particular “sawce” accompanying a dish is “really yummy”.

MasterChef is a complete melodramatic farce; it is a dish best made to serve any comedy screenwriter seeking to create a parody of a reality TV competition. With an ‘M’ logo unnecessarily being licked by flames, and a soundtrack of tense, low chords, and resounding drum beats counting down to Armageddon accompanying knock-out rounds, and hyper electric guitar solos searing through cooking count-downs, it is just like X Factor, except this lot are literally making a meal of it. Read more

The Rise of the Annoying TV ‘Bloke’ Chef

THE FABULOUS BAKER BROTHERS: Wednesday 25th January, BBC2, 8.30pm

Cookery shows have become a ubiquitous presence on our screens and can generally be considered as the ‘bread sauce’ of the television kitchen cupboard – bland, unnecessary but a traditional staple. However, millions of us still tune in to watch a myriad of chefs compete to activate the salivation membranes in our stomachs (that’s a scientific fact – don’t bother checking), my appetite for these kind of shows – such as it was – couldn’t be more unwhetted.

If you take a quick glance at the current broadcast schedules there seems to be one particular ingredient dominating televisual recipes: testosterone. The latter months of 2011 seemed to have a lovely feminine touch, with Nigella making love to our eyeballs with her own unique brand of food fuckery and the perfectly lovely Lorraine Pascale bringing a delicate warmth to cookery programming, mostly in a bid to prove that her recipes weren’t as bland as her presenting style. The dawn of 2012 has seeded a new crop of cookery shows that all seem to emanate an annoying middle class blokey swagger, which has caused the likes of the comparatively prim and proper Anthony Worrall Thomspon to go on the rob in order to earn some ‘geezer’ points.

The newest of the current batch of culinary stars are The Fabulous Baker Brothers. One is a baker, the other is a chef and they’re brothers. You know they are brothers because it’s in the title and because we are reminded at the beginning of every show and then at ten minute intervals throughout the rest of the programme. Obviously they love competing because they are brothers and because they are brothers they act like little scamps and throw flour and get each other in headlocks and mess up their hair and stuff. They hold meat pie baking competitions, throw ingredients cavalierly into hot pans and chop up incredibly manly things like bruschetta with an oversized axe, which is in no way compensating for an undersized manhood. Just to cement the fact they are blokey rascals, their surname is Herbet. Tom and Henry Herbet. In case you still harbour some affection for these Fabulous Baker Bastards, take a look at this photo.. Read more

How Can Cheryl Make Herself Understood In The US? Ask Stephen Hawking..

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Cheryl Cole – Is she worth it? No, I’m not talking about her hair colour, but the media attention. The constant stream of analysis and comment on what she’s wearing, what her love life’s like, and whether or not she will change her accent so that she won’t turn off American viewers?

Apparently, Cat Deeley has been mouthing off about how the US won’t take to Cheryl’s northern tones. I’m not entirely sure why Deeley is getting involved or what her qualifications in this particular area are, but if Cheryl’s worried, I may have the solution. If the Geordie lass wants to be nice and clear when speaking to an American audience, why not go for the Steven Hawking approach? It’s clear, concise and would be a new sound for her. I’m not sure how Hawking would feel about it, but I for one know that the L’Oreal adverts would be a hell of a lot more entertaining.

Back to my original point – does anyone care about Cole? Really? Are you sure?! Have I just lost the plot when I should be equally obsessed about the Girls Aloud strumpet as much as everyone else?

The pressure on my Cheryl Kettle reached boiling point today after it was reported that the X Factor judge has had a boob job in advance of her debut on the US show. Dr Dirk Kremer, from Harley Street Aesthetics, told Closer mag: “Cheryl’s boobs look very different now. Despite being hidden under a work-out top, you can see how rounded and full they seem. To mimic this look, she would have to be wearing a good gel bra.”

Well newsflash Dr Kremer, perhaps she did wear a decent bra, and I wonder what benefit it serves anyone for you to offer up opinion of Cole’s mammary glands. Come to think about it, why were you looking so close at her assets anyway? If I stuffed the crotch of my jeans with tissue would you accuse me of going under the knife?!

It’s also been reported today that Cheryl’s had movie offers. Great, another person who can’t act landing roles in terrible films. No, I haven’t seen them yet, but you just know they’re going to be awful.

My point here is that perhaps the media should pay attention to more important matters. But being that the media only serve up content that people want, perhaps it’s us as a society that should change. Why do we crave news on celebs? Is it because our own lives are so dull we need to know what other people are up to? If that’s true then it’s quite a sad statement.

But rather then following Cheryl Cole’s every move, why not be inspired by someone who has actually done something with their life and provided more to society than giving us a whole host of entertainment acts? Just an idea. Rant over.

Is Reality Too Boring For Reality TV?

C4 has been accused of editing their latest reality series Love Thy Neighbour to paint the locals like backward hill-billies. So have broadcasters decided that reality television is now only watchable if it’s mixed with fiction?

In these brave, post-Big Brother times, producers are working hard to keep reality TV’s cogs turning. No one watches reality TV to see some actual reality, which, for most people, is cups of tea and chats about the rain. They watch it to see a frail Yoga teacher on Come Dine With Me sob when the cat pukes in her cauliflower cheese, or the carnivorous country-type openly laughs at her vegetarian moussaka.

Producers turn some pretty dirty tricks to get the ‘performance’ they want out of their subjects. Most of the time, that means finding ways round the boring propensity of most people toward getting along fine by sticking in a large, sh**-stirring oar. Take personality clashing – the Coach Trip formula – get a lanky-haired druid couple in an enclosed space with two members of the Tory youth, and film them bitching about each other. Some shows, like ITV2′s awe-inspiring The Only Way Is Essex, even admit to scripting scenes for the ‘viewers entertainment’.

Not so damaging, but there are far more complex ways to cause a stir, and then edit it into a 45-minute package. Especially for the villagers of Grassington, the picture box Yorkshire village featured in Channel 4′s Love Thy Neighbour. Or should I say, townspeople, because it’s actually a decent sized rural connobation of nearly two thousand. Not that you’d know that from the Hovis-ad depiction in Love Thy Neighbour, a show that pits 12 families against each other in order to win a £300,000 house. The twist is, residents of the town vote for the family they want in. Seems innocent enough, until you factor in some stereotypical ‘rural prejudices’, and the whole thing starts looking like a badly judged episode of Last Of The Summer Wine, guest written by Jim Davidson.

Grassington, 2011 - or so Channel 4 would have you believe

The first episode saw a (whisper it) black family come to try and make their home in Grassington – all too predictably greeted with statements like “I was 18 before I saw a black person,” and the old “I’m not racist, but…” Only, it didn’t seem that plausible. Because, when greying women sat behind spinning wheels (I’m not joking) weren’t making archaic remarks, the family were visibly well recieved. As an aspiring Tory politician, Phillip, the father, was a smash hit in the town, a Conservative-stronghold. They roundly trounced the opposition (a white middle-class family) in the vote-off and sailed into the final.

Channel 4′s trailing of the show however, was laden with the racist remarks. The next week a lesbian couple competed against a single mother, and the exercise was repeated – a wealth of offensive comments from largely the same residents, with the lesbian couple subsequently winning the vote. Almost as if the producers were trying to ramp up the ratings by rehashing some old and, largely, untrue stereotypes. Managing to present the town entirely devoid of its Bangladeshi curry restaurant, and, ofcourse, its non-white residents, they also fail to mention its proximity to Bradford, one of the most multicultural places in the UK.

At least The Only Way Is Essex puts its cards on the table, declaring itself a fakery from the outset. Maybe telly’s bigwigs have mined as much as they can from real people. Maybe reality, with its balanced views and chats about the rain, is just too boring for TV after all.

The Artois Four-merly Known As Wife Beater

It’s understandable that, when your brand becomes synonomous with sweaty, white-vested, sunburnt wife beaters, you might want to change tack.

The newest Stella Artois Four ad paints Stella not as the favoured tipple of Glaswegian council estates and Alcoholics Anonymous conventions, but as a sophisticated french-speaking hops’n'barley smoothie.

It’s a lovely French street in the sixties (they’ve clearly just nailed some European shutters to the Hovis village), and some rustic piano loaders are getting on with their piano loading. But look, a fit bird! Oops, there goes the piano. MERDE! It’s rolling down the hill! After a lot of ooh-la-laing, the humble piano loader ends up coiffed, glass of Stella in hand (note: NOT a pint), getting off with a fit bird. Not the same fit bird from earlier though, because ‘e iz so frunche.

Perhaps they’re targeting men that go to wine bars, or men that want to be Mark Ronson. Or French men. Or people who think that wearing head-to-toe tailored white gives them an edge. It’s hard to tell.

Since guidelines from the pesky Advertising Standards Authority now dictate that alcohol adverts must be almost impossibly evocative, you can see why Stella’s ad team may have been stumped. Selling a product without being able to explcitly suggest the actual selling point – it makes you really pissed – can be a drag.

Maybe they should just embrace the stereotype – Stella, if you’re reading, picture this: a rainy day in East Kilbride. Inside a small, sticky-carpeted pub Morrissey croons “Last night I dreamt… that somebody loved me,” from the jukebox. A man and woman sit opposite each other, not making eye contact. The man cradles a pint of Stella. He reaches out a hand to touch the woman, but she recoils. She looks toward the camera, we see a tear run down her cheek. Fade to Black.

No?

Seven Days: Big Brother’s Tedious Little Brother

The demise of Big Brother left a great chasm in the Channel 4 schedule and a gaping hole in the hearts of many reality TV fans. The answer? Seven Days, according to C4 bosses. The premise is simple; a bunch of people are followed around their local area (Notting Hill) going about their business and then when viewers have finished watching the programme, they can go online and tell them “what to do next”, which roughly translates as “have a cosy Twitter-style chat to them, but not actually influence their behaviour in any way”.

The trouble is, watching ordinary people doing ordinary things will never be extraordinary. Some will argue that the residents of Notting Hill can hardly be considered ordinary, but actually Seven Days bosses have done a pretty good job of assembling a decent mix of participants vaguely reflective of the mishmash of social groups one finds in the capital.

Indeed, most of the contestants come across well and many viewers have really warmed to them, but since so many of us have been raised on a diet of televisual extremes, watching a dozen or so people just like us do nothing in particular really isn’t that interesting. TV should either inform or entertain and unfortunately, Seven Days doesn’t do either. Read more

Goodbye Originality: Welcome To The Age Of Rewhatever

Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ reinvention of Sherlock Holmes is the latest in a long list of remakes and reimagining’s that is swamping both television and film. Though Moffat and Gatiss have taken a uniquely original approach to well-worn source material, Sherlock nevertheless adds to a growing infection within screen story-telling. Where are the new ideas? Where is the creativity?

In recent years we have been treated (though I use the term loosely) to a plethora of television remakes, or ‘updates’, which have brought revered shows into the twenty-first century, often with varying degrees of success. The BBC’s Survivors was generally favourably received, though the ratings slowly tailed off. Another Moffat creation, Jekyll, performed well. Shane Ritchie’s Minder, which the makers described as a revival rather than a remake (notice the frequent use of ‘re-‘ to denote a lack of original thinking), only lasted for six episodes. Doctor Who’s rejuvenation has been a great success though.

But should we be worried by these reimaginings, retellings, reinventions or whatever whimsical word they want to prefix the term ‘re’ to excuse the dredging up of old material? The new American series of The Prisoner was received with mixed feelings – which given the cult status attached to the original, was something of an achievement. But despite all this chat of “bringing classic shows to a fresh audience” shouldn’t these great pieces of television be left alone, ala Blackadder? Read more

“Please Not Tydlesley!”: World Cup Pundit Review

What do vuvuzelas, Louie Spence and getting your foreskin caught in your flies all have in common? All are significantly less painful and annoying than the recent World Cup coverage.

Football is a game of opinions. Watching a game of football is like reading a novel or watching a film: they are all open to interpretation. Ideally, coverage should be like a York Notes for football, offering in-depth analysis that would make even @zonal_marking purr. Instead, the World Cup coverage provided by BBC and ITV is the equivalent of having the finer nuances of The Brothers Karamazov explained by Miss South Carolina. I feel as though I’ve spent the last month being bludgeoned to death by clubs made out of chicken wire, tired clichés and human faeces.

The anchors of both stations are largely inoffensive, though Adrian Chiles’ pre USA versus England anti-America tirade was a miscalculation to say the least. It is not even the multitude of errors (most notably ITV HD opting to cut to an advertisement as Steven Gerrard opened the scoring against the USA) that riles me. Rather, it is the complete lack of intelligent discussion from the “expert” pundits.

Alan Shearer, whose hairline has receded further than a Shaolin Monks’ testes, is less insightful than a cephalopod mollusc – although Paul the psychic octopus has been particularly acute with his recent predictions. Shearer is as intelligent as his goal scoring celebration was creative and when commenting on Pele’s assertion that an African team would win the World Cup before 2000, he muttered: “I think it’s going to be longer”. Really, Alan? Are you sure? Read More…

Big Brother Fans: Fickle

Big Brother fans across the country will be looking on in interest this afternoon to see if close friends Caoimhe and Shabby actually make good on the threat they made last night and walk off the reality show. If they do join the small percentage of renegade contestants to actually storm from the Elstree compound, then we won’t be hearing any whoops of delight from show producers.

When the pair came to the diary room resolved in their decision to leave yesterday, they were persuaded to delay their exit until the morning, whereupon they would be allowed to walk if their determination was still undimmed. But this was not a case of making the girls sweat, indeed if anyone was sweating it was the execs on the other side of the one-way glass.

Producers have long understood the importance of holding on to the most unpopular (and therefore the most interesting) housemates and following the exit of the dizzily myopic Sunshine on Friday, they were probably panicking at the prospect of losing their three most watchable contestants in the space of two days. Read More…

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