ITV HD cuts to adverts during Gerrard's World Cup goal

After months of promotion to encourage people to make the jump to HD for this World Cup tournament, ITV HD made the mother of all blunders during England’s showdown with the USA on Saturday.

Just minutes into the first half England took the lead from a Steven Gerrard goal. But those watching on ITV HD would not have had time to celebrate, as the channel cut to adverts during the moments it took for England to put the ball in the back of the net. To make matters worse, the transmission that then returned was in standard definition rather than high-def format for the majority of the game.

ITV HD’s Adrian Chiles apologised for the problems at half-time, saying “apologies for those watching in HD. I believe there was some interruption in your coverage.”

An official ITV statement puts the blame down to “human error” and a transmission problem from supplier Technicolor.

But ITV’s problems didn’t just affect the 1.5 million watching the match in HD. Glitches during the opener between South Africa and Mexico meant that some 90,000 struggled to follow ITV’s online coverage of the game.