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Result

To: Duty Office
Subject: ITV - Feedback Form
Programme Name: World Cup
Date of Broadcast: 19-June-2006
Time of Broadcast: 8:00 PM
Channel: ITV1
Region: London and South East
How do you receive your TV signal? Freeview

Comments: Dear Sir/Madam,

I am red/green colourblind as are 1 in 200 people in the UK (mostly men). You may be interested to know that although this has not hampered my enjoyment of your excellent World Cup coverage, I am unable to read the graphic you use to show viewers how much extra time has been added on for the half.

This is because (I am told) the graphic is red on dark grey. As both colours appear the same to me, it looks like a grey box when it pops up.

I realise this adds an element of suspense, but can you please use a lighter background or yellow lights?

Regards,
Cliff Jones

Later that day….

Dear Mr Jones

Thank you for your email.  After successful negotiations with the Host Broadcasters, it has been agreed to change the colours on the extra time graphic, which hopefully will greatly improve the service for our colourblind viewers.

Regards
DUTY OFFICER

13 Responses to “Result”

  1. Ed R Says:

    WOw. Talk about pull! Just ONE email from you and you influence the WORLD CUP BROADCAST! How cool is that?
    Can you do anything about the gas prices?

  2. cliff Says:

    Yeah! I send one email and three hours later, hey presto!

  3. Ed R Says:

    AUgh! I meant LOWER them!!

  4. Sooz Says:

    Wow! That’s superb!

  5. cliff Says:

    hee hee - Listen out on Sunday at 8:43 pm UK time - that’s the next occasion when stoppage time will be mentioned on ITV right before the end of the first half of the Portugal Holland game. If it changes, or if they even mention why, feel free to impress your friends with the fun fact about why it happened.

    Does ”Host Broadcasters” mean the worldwide syndication folks in Germany? That’s even cooler, because it means I’ve changed it for everyone in the world. Oh man, if anyone is reading this outside of the UK and notices the boards have changed from red dots to yellow dots, let me know.

  6. china blue Says:

    Nice one!
    Would you mind turning this Evian into Krug, while I’m here?

  7. cliff Says:

    :) - Wish I could CB - thanks for the message.

  8. Ed R Says:

    I’m a little confused by the term ‘HNT’ on China BLue’s blog.

  9. JonnyB Says:

    ‘negotiated’?!?

    Not sure your site feed is working BTW - or I didn’t get this in Bloglines as far as I could tell…

  10. cliff Says:

    Hi Jonny,

    I’ve been having trouble with bloglines and the new site. As far as I can see, the new feed is http://www.thisisthis.org/feed/ or http://www.thisisthis.org/?feed=rss2

    Can you let me know if this works?

    Cheers,
    Cliff

  11. Lucie Says:

    My son is same colourblind as you - does it affect your life in general in any way.

    Good result BTW

  12. cliff Says:

    Hi Lucie, not in any meaningful way, although I sometimes have to get people to describe shapes to me instead of colours when trying to identify things. And I can\’t read a tube map in London.

    It prevents me from doing a few things. I have written about it a lot on this site at length and dug them our for you, so as to save you some time you can visit this previous post:

    http://www.thisisthis.org/2005/08/04/colourblind/

    also read this: http://colorvisiontesting.com/what%20colorblind%20people%20see.htm

    I\’m guessing that your dad was colourblind and if you have any sisters, their male children would be too, whether they realise it or not. I didn\’t know I was until I was 15 years old, until I took some tests, then it all made sense.

  13. Sam Says:

    How bloody exciting! Well done that chap…

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