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Comment by nerdawson | Hacker News Reader

Euro 2020 only reinforced how important the BBC actually is. iPlayer were streaming matches in 4K HDR while ITV were pumping out shockingly poor resolution low frame rate content that was barely watchable. Hard to believe that ITV were the ones with commercial funding behind them. Seeing that a match was going to be aired on ITV filled me with dread.

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> while ITV were pumping out shockingly poor resolution low frame rate content that was barely watchable.

Don't forget the adverts and the several occasions when their streaming servers just plain couldn't be arsed to deliver any data to people during important games.

This is depressingly true. Whenever ITV were hosting the match, I generally just resigned myself to not being able to watch it. Besides that, when it did work, the commentary was absolutely atrocious and did nothing but state the obvious. The BBC's coverage on iPlayer was superb, and I'll admit before I paid for any streaming service I used to comb through iPlayer the same way I comb through Netflix now.

> the commentary was absolutely atrocious and did nothing but state the obvious.

I've always assumed that how sports fans like their commentaries - vacuous, uninformative and shouty. If fans wanted intelligent commentary, surely broadcasters would hire intelligent commentators, rather than ineloquent retired sports stars?

Thankfully for track and field athletics on the BBC we have former world mile record holder Steve Cram, who's the epitome of an intelligent commentator.

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