Broadcasting Live

It's been a while since I was on this blog, but I've a few spare minutes and I thought this article deserved slightly more than the 140 characters I usually manage nowadays...
I say deserved when what I really mean is that I have too many complaints to fit in 140 characters... It's an article on the BBC versus ITV coverage of the World Cup and while I'm not exactly a huge fan of the BBC coverage, it is certainly better than ITV's. Here the writer praises Adrian Chiles:

Adrian Chiles has made a smooth transition to the ITV host slot and is, if truth be told, a much more interesting broadcaster than Gary Lineker. Personally I find the ITV panelists much more interesting than the same old faces on the BBC.

Which is rubbish, Chiles is certainly chummy enough but he doesn't have the necessary presence to carry off hosting duties, maybe he could have got away with doing some second show, not the main highlights, but some sort of MOTD2 style programme... And the "same old faces" at the BBC? This is true for both, the usual bunch are there on both channels, the new faces on both are given cursory time to prove some sort of internationalist credentials - during one game Andy Townsend and Gareth Southgate rambled on for so long I didn't even realise there was a third person there until a wide shot appeared just before the adverts...
And the author of this has no consistency either: after moaning about the "same old faces" he then wants "Motty" to do the final... I think, because the sentence he says this in is followed by one slagging him off:

Meanwhile, ITV might even have the edge with commentators in this tournament. Although Clive Tyldesley is not to everyone's taste he is a familiar voice and has plenty of experience. Meanwhile the BBC will be without John Motson for the first final in aeons. Motty should have been pensioned off years ago, what with his inability to work out what was actually happening on the pitch.

So the BBC is rubbish now Motty won't be doing the final but actually he was rubbish anyway - you might have thought someone who could see what was happening on the pitch might be preferable.
I imagine this piece is just playing devil's advocate, the lacklustre way it's written hardly convinces us the writer believes what he's saying, and if he does.... God help us...