[rick]

The ITV Be bumpers are a mess. Every time it plays out with that horrible stutter and its very noticeable.

[Allanbuzzy]

Really getting fed up with every bit of continuity being a promotion for ITVX too - it's really crossing the line from promotion to advertising for me.

Not sure how it's any different to how the BBC promotes iPlayer to be frank, I think it's smart to continually promote both the channel it's on and the platform you're able to stream it on afterwards. In fact, I'm pretty sure all of the terrestrial channels say "on [TV channel], and/stream it on [TV service]". Barring Sky obviously, who just say "Available now" in reference to their on-demand offerings.

Arguably, it makes sense to constantly make their streaming service synonymous with the brand, as this rebrand was meant to help the channels be a navigational tool to X, but I understand some of the complaints that it does weaken the TV brands a little, if not by a large footnote, as if BBC One is a footnote to BBC iPlayer, as is ITV1 to ITVX.

[Si-Co]

Not sure if anyone else caught it, but watching ITV1 London (via ITVX), during the first Dickinson's Real Deal ad break earlier there was a "your programme continues shortly" clip for about 5secs before the break bumper. Looked to be using this ITV Creates ident from June 2019. Obviously where the adverts didn't quite fill the break but not enough time for an ITV promo. Tried to catch it on +1 but my recorder's region is West and the adverts are different with no gap.

Edit - made a quick mockup of what it looked like:

So this is scheduled into the break for regions where the ads/promos don’t quite fill the time? I’ve certainly never seen it before, but I don’t watch much live TV. Because it uses out of date graphics/channel name I get the impression it’s a last minute thing (maybe an ad or promo was changed in the London region so there was excess time?). 

I would expect to see something like this during a short breakdown - I’m sure there’s one which says “your programme will continue as soon as possible” or similar which has been used during breakdowns?

I’m not suggesting for a moment that this is a placeholder/sustaining feed but what does ITV1 transmit during commercial breaks to STV and NTC/YTV, who insert their own ads locally?

[Kojak]

Because it’s a very minor aspect that 99.99% of viewers wouldn’t even notice. It doesn’t look half-hearted, it doesn’t really look anything other than white text on a black background.

And it's a much more legible font than those being used for promos.   The ECPs though have long been wasted on ITV - frustrating they design the credits in such a way they can be squeezed without reducing the font size (or only doing so slightly) yet they're reduced and the space around them isn't put to use for video promotions either - just small static images.

Really getting fed up with every bit of continuity being a promotion for ITVX too - it's really crossing the line from promotion to advertising for me.

I wish they'd just let programme makers design their own credits at this point, like nearly every other channel. I've never liked generic credits - they date the programmes instantly and they look naff. (Except maybe the smoky bar credits from around 2002 - they looked good, but again dated very quickly.)

[Josh]

Not sure if anyone else caught it, but watching ITV1 London (via ITVX), during the first Dickinson's Real Deal ad break earlier there was a "your programme continues shortly" clip for about 5secs before the break bumper. Looked to be using this ITV Creates ident from June 2019. Obviously where the adverts didn't quite fill the break but not enough time for an ITV promo. Tried to catch it on +1 but my recorder's region is West and the adverts are different with no gap.

Edit - made a quick mockup of what it looked like:

Yes, have seen this pop up for at least a year or so now. Don't think it's a sustaining feed, it just appears on ITVX when there are no more adverts left to show for that break.

[Kojak]

Not sure if anyone else caught it, but watching ITV1 London (via ITVX), during the first Dickinson's Real Deal ad break earlier there was a "your programme continues shortly" clip for about 5secs before the break bumper. Looked to be using this ITV Creates ident from June 2019. Obviously where the adverts didn't quite fill the break but not enough time for an ITV promo. Tried to catch it on +1 but my recorder's region is West and the adverts are different with no gap.

Edit - made a quick mockup of what it looked like:

Yes, have seen this pop up for at least a year or so now. Don't think it's a sustaining feed, it just appears on ITVX when there are no more adverts left to show for that break.

Does the ITVX feed have different adverts to the TV feed, then?

[colinrobinson]

Yes, have seen this pop up for at least a year or so now. Don't think it's a sustaining feed, it just appears on ITVX when there are no more adverts left to show for that break.

Does the ITVX feed have different adverts to the TV feed, then?

It's probably personalised adverts for you if you're watching on ITVX and the personalised adverts didn't fit the live break

[western]

It's probably personalised adverts for you if you're watching on ITVX and the personalised adverts didn't fit the live break

Interesting, as this is what I see on ITVX when filing ad gaps on the 'Fast' channels as a premium subscriber:

Does the ITVX feed have different adverts to the TV feed, then?

I don't think it's personalised at all on the 'Live' tab from the ITVX website, as normally on streaming services with ads you see a half second of black screen whilst it loads an advert as you watch. The feed appears that is played out to regions, which I'm fairly sure is the London region as that's what the 4pm weather bulletin and the local news come up as if you try to watch them online.

Edit: Realised it definitely can't be personalised adverts as I have a subscription. The only time I've seen an ad is either live TV or a show like Family Guy, which includes a warning at the start (see below) and shows only a 30 second ITVX promo in the ad slot

[colinrobinson]

It's probably personalised adverts for you if you're watching on ITVX and the personalised adverts didn't fit the live break

Interesting, as this is what I see on ITVX when filing ad gaps on the 'Fast' channels as a premium subscriber:

Does the ITVX feed have different adverts to the TV feed, then?

I don't think it's personalised at all on the 'Live' tab from the ITVX website, as normally on streaming services with ads you see a half second of black screen whilst it loads an advert as you watch. The feed appears that is played out to regions, which I'm fairly sure is the London region as that's what the 4pm weather bulletin and the local news come up as if you try to watch them online.

Edit: Realised it definitely can't be personalised adverts as I have a subscription. The only time I've seen an ad is either live TV or a show like Family Guy, which includes a warning at the start (see below) and shows only a 30 second ITVX promo in the ad slot

If you are are watching on a browser, you can open the developer tools and look at the network tab during an advert break to determine what's going on. I don't really know ITVX and so am not sure about the FAST channel but the method of personalising adverts is usually very different between playback of VOD and Live streams. 

I am guessing that for ITV (and I really don't know about FAST channels so not sure about them), they use Server Side Ad Insertion on the live streams which replaces the adverts which go out on the Terestrial streams with personalised adverts. If you watch an advert break in the developer tools of a browser, you can see the ad files replacing the live stream files. Even if you are a premium subscriber, there will still be adverts on the live streams as the original stream going to the TV aerial has adverts. 

If you are using a browser, you can reverse engineer how it works but it comes down to the implementation is probably different between VOD and live streams, that said, I don't watch ITVX so goodness knows but that's how other companies do it (STV seems to use a company www.yospace.com  and you see them in the network tab)

YOSPACE | THE WORLD'S MOST TRUSTED AD INSERTION PLATFORM
SSAICase StudiesResourcesNewsBlogInsightsDev ToolsAbout usContactIt's time …
  Source: www.yospace.com

[Si-Co]

I hadn’t realised we were talking about ITVX here, so it makes sense that there may be “gaps” if adverts are personalised.

BTW, when trying out STV Player last night, I clicked on “watch live” during Masked Singer, and I was surprised that the STV Player stream was over a minute ahead of ITV Tyne Tees on Virgin Media. A few seconds difference I could understand, but Virgin being over a minute behind is surprising? Is the STV Player often ahead of STV itself? Or were ITV and STV out of sync for some reason?

Has anyone noticed similar discrepancies between ITVX and cable TV?