Sky – Believe In Better
I'm not especially a fan of Sky, the Death Star of the TV world that's currently busy hoovering up everything value it can possibly get its grubby mitts on as part of Rupert Murdoch's (the Emperor) endless attempts to destroy the BBC.
Sky's thing is all about convincing you that it's a premium product, but it has never really been any such thing. Weighted down with an embarrassment of riches of US imports and sport it's a serious proposition, but Sky's efforts to craft its own programming over the last 20 year have frequently been cringe-inducing.
Perception, however, is everything with stuff like this - and a new generation of TV consumers will grow up thinking Sky is a necessity; that perceived value everything in this context.
Which makes this poster I spotted a couple of years ago all the more embarrassing. Ha ha.
Sky’s sickly Christmas schedule promo
Taken on their own, the elements in the promo for Sky's festive offerings wouldn't really irritate me. But the sheer frequency of it across Sky's various channels has made it extremely maddening.
Helena Bonham-Carter's annoying face; George Clooney's American Fantastic Mr Fox; Alec Baldwin's fat, sweaty, naked body; the stupid voiceover guy's ridiculous voice...
But most of all is the horrible soundtrack; a song so monumentally twee that it makes Mariah Carey sound like Burial. It's a vile three minutes by feckless hippified outfit Orba Squara that sounds like it's been put together by a committee of focus group wonks; dredged through Sunny Delight and covered with hundreds and thousands by Justin Bieber.
Sickly, and sickening.
Davina McCall dance leotard horror advert
What is it about middle-aged women squeezing into unflattering leotards and prancing about in front of cameras?
First Madge in the video for Hung Up, and now Davina McCall in an advert for some awful new series on dancing from Sky.
By my reckoning McCall is one of the more unloved characters on TV, horribly over-exposed and extremely annoying – if not actually evil.
And this ad seems predicated on the belief that people actually want to see McCall, in all her almost-gynaecological glory, take part in some bad dance routines.
This is peculiar, as it's always seemed unlikely to me that the public regard McCall with anything other than tolerance at best.
This full ad was teased with the first few seconds where McCall, in what's supposed to be a sassy and sexually-provocative move, climbs onto a table of judges and starts wiggling her ass about.
In what was a clear attempt to invite the question 'I wonder what all this is about?' no mention of the show was made. My own response to seeing the tease was 'Whatever the hell this is promoting, I never want to see it'.
McCall's bird-of-prey-like visage – at one point she seems about to devour a young child – and oddly-shapeless body in an unflattering outfit, together with an overriding sense of self-satisfaction swaddling the whole thing, combine to make this one of the more unpleasant 100 seconds I've recently had the misfortune to endure.
Sky’s 20/20 Cricket World Cup advert with David Lloyd
This is in many ways a good advert. It's funny – on the face of it - slick and has a good concept behind it. And it's advertising something I like – cricket.
But for various reasons I'm not feeling positive about the 20/20 World Cup and this advert features a man who, increasingly, makes me want to give people Chinese burns.
There's probably a lot of good things to say about Lloyd: a fine cricketer; useful coach; insightful broadcaster; and probably a nice guy.
However, Lloyd seems to have made some kind of Faustian pact with the Sky money men and now plays the part of some kind of village idiot in the Sky commentary box. This is bad enough in test cricket. In 20/20 Lloyd goes up to 11.
This advert is Sky's coverage in a nutshell. Trying to make cricket sexy by making it loud, colourful, brash and full off that fast edit stuff that everyone does these days.
I'm all for trying to make cricket more entertaining, but really Sky's efforts just irritate the hell out of me. They're a bit like an embarrassing relative getting drunk at a party and dancing to Madness to prove they're still hip.
Lloyd has clearly been appointed Idiot-in-Chief for the 20/20, for which he breaks out an array of stupid catchphrases and adopts a laddish aspect that extends to making lascivious comments about breasts at any given opportunity. But mainly he just shouts. "Six!" "Out!" "Crikey!"
I'm also perturbed by the sight of Lloyd in this advert wearing the device that opticians use to test lenses. Coupled with his grinning lunatic face and slightly unhinged appearance, it could well be the face of a particularly deranged mass murderer in a slasher film. Perhaps various cricket puns could be used by the insane Lloyd when he dispatches victims. "How's that for a cut?!" "I'm going to remove your googlies!" "Now you've got two short legs!" That sort of thing. But I digress.
The ad sums up everything you need to know about Sky's coverage. You may not see a problem. Fair enough. But the whole darn shooting match simply makes me want to turn off the TV and bury my head in an old Wisden.