pictures of Spanish players celebrating the only goal of the match<\/a>.<\/p>\nDuring the ad break, Spain had scored and TVNZ missed it. <\/p>\n
Social media blew up, of course, baying for blood at the effrontery of placing ads in live game time when they were already suffering ads during the Fifa-inspired \u201chydration break\u201d in each half.<\/p>\n
These things happen during live coverage, it must be said \u2013 but we return to customer service. <\/p>\n
Instead of ads, where was the message: \u201cSorry for the break in transmission; we are working to fix it urgently\u201d?. <\/p>\n
Also, should we be getting ads when paying a fee for coverage and why ads during hydration breaks?<\/p>\n
Those breaks, thanks Fifa, are actually planned ad breaks. <\/p>\n
They were invented at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, bedevilled by hugely high temperatures. However, the stadiums were air-conned and hydration breaks were the call of the referee, or when the temperatures passed an agreed level.<\/p>\n
\u201cAh,\u201d thought the greedy suits at Fifa, \u201can opportunity to make even more money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next time, under the label of \u201cplayer welfare\u201d, let\u2019s insert scheduled hydration breaks and allow the broadcasters to put ads in each of the three-minute breaks in each half.<\/p>\n
Most other broadcasters, like TVNZ, need the money to recoup their investment, so are in boots and all.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t know what TVNZ paid for World Cup rights but the BBC has reported that the broadcaster in the US, Fox Sports paid $850m.<\/p>\n
Using Fox Sports ad rates, they quoted experts estimating that, from hydration ad breaks alone, Fox was making $440m over the tournament.<\/p>\n
That is all extra income \u2013 and the obvious corollary is that it enables Fifa, claiming greater added value, to put their prices up next time, meaning more cost for broadcasters and consumers.<\/p>\n
![\"Spanish]()
Spanish goalscorer Alex Baena. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
So these ads are here to stay, folks, encroaching ever more on sports broadcasting.<\/p>\n
We can\u2019t even rely on advertisers understanding the negatives in being broadcast at a key moment, like the goal scored in the Spain-Uruguay match.<\/p>\n
I know only too well from a life outside journalism that marketing executives are instantly on the phone to media organisations when something like that happens, screaming blue murder that their hallowed product has been shown in such a negative setting.<\/p>\n
Media folks generally give them free ad space, known as \u201ca makegood\u201d. So … even more ads.<\/p>\n
All we can hope for is that outfits like TVNZ tidy up their act so that at least the broadcasts of the actual games are quality, on a quality platform, backed up by some kind of customer service that suggests they don\u2019t just trouser the money and ignore us. <\/p>\n
I mean, three weeks to answer an email?<\/p>\n
If not, such broadcasters can probably expect reviews like this from former Sunday Times food critic and social commentator AA Gill, who once reviewed a hotel thus: \u201cThere\u2019s no furniture and no soap. The water comes in a rusty dribble. The bath has been used to interrogate sheep. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe towel is a bar mat. There\u2019s a blanket, a chipped tin teapot and a carpet that looks like tar applied with a comb.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First, there was the debacle of the new app for TVNZ+ which simply did not work on many…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3113,806,8172,10542,6119,9517,36862,5213,1452,27494,111,139,69,17357,9643,213,3291,6445,13797,377],"class_list":["post-503090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ads","tag-as","tag-backlash","tag-cup","tag-faces","tag-fans","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-issues","tag-lewis","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paul","tag-spark","tag-sports","tag-streaming","tag-tvnz","tag-used","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}