I wanted to share with you my recent discussions with both Premium TV and Ben Lambert regarding the STFC World fiasco last weekend.
To Martyn Starnes, cc Brunel FM and Premium TV
Martyn,
I am writing to you to express my concern over the sub-standard service offered by STFC World currently.
I have been trying to log in since 1445 today, to be constantly greeted by the message:
Service Unavailable - Zero size object
The server is temporarily unable to service your request. Please try again later.
Reference #15.24b23554.1187445878.fdf4fd7
Since I live about 4000 miles from Swindon, I am unable to pick up Brunel FM via a radio, so the web and STFC World are the only option available to me. Not being able to access the service that I am paying for on match day is extremely frustrating.
Whilst we are on the subject, I might as well draw your attention to the general service provided on match day by STFC World. I have been a subscriber to the service for 4 years, and frankly its unreliable at best, and despite promises galore, I have yet to see any significant improvement in the service over those 4 years. The most common problems are the Swindon commentary not being available until several minutes after kick-off (despite the opposition commentary being available) and constant drop-off of commentary during the game. You might be interested to know that during the game with Walsall at the end of last season, arguably the most important in recent history, the commentary did not work until 10 minutes into the second half of that game.
I am totally dissatisfied right now and I am keen to know how you intend to solve these problems with the service provider.
Yours sincerely
Bullshit response from Premium TV...
Thank you for your email.
At the moment most of our football sites are down due to technical problems on our end and we are striving to fix the problem as soon as possible. We do apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Kind regards
Web support
...at which point Coxy got even more pissed off and decided to wratchet up the pressure a little...
I do understand that you had a number of technical problems today (Saturday 18 August) that affected many other clubs services. However that does not pass the acid test for a response.
As I quoted in my e-mail to the Acting Chief Executive of Swindon Town FC, there remain several problems with your service that have failed to be resolved in 4 years. Yes, you have had the same problems for 4 YEARS and not solved them. In my eyes, thats pretty poor.
I'm not quite sure who gets my money when I pay 40 quid for the privilege of access to STFC World. Is it the Club or Premium TV? Whoever it is, unless I get guarantees with tangible evidence to boot in the next month that the following areas will be improved, I won't bother to renew my subscription based on the utter foul-up today and during the final day of last season.
Therefore, can you assure me and demonstrate tangible improvements in the following areas:
1. Swindon Town FC commentary will be switched on when the match kicks off, not 10/20/30 * (delete as applicable) minutes into the game
2. That commentary, when switched on, will not cut out every 10 seconds.
3. That I might be able to log in to STFC World at all next Saturday....
I'm sick of namby pamby responses now. I want action, and if none happens, I'll not bother with the service.
Yours
...which to my surprise got this slightly more detailed bullshit response from Premium TV...
Dear Mark,
Many thanks for your email.
Please accept our sincere apologies for the disruption of service you have experienced this weekend. We aim to provide the commentary service without errors and we understand your frustration that the service let you down this weekend.
Our engineers have identified an intermittent problem with our xml delivery platform that caused the performance issues you experienced on Saturday, we have rectified this issue and will be performing a number of system tests to ensure that the will be no problems from now on.
Once again please let me extend our apologies to you as a valued subscriber, I hope that your patience will continue and that you will enjoy the next games without any problems.
Regards
Web Operations
To my surprise, I then received a reply from Ben Lambert. I say to my surprise, as I honestly expected sod all, so kudos Ben...
Martyn has forwarded your e mail to me. Apologies that you are having such a frustrating time. We, as a club, are aware of the issues re STFC World. There were technical issues with Brunel FM at the Northampton game, but these have since been resolved. On Monday we also received the following e mail from PTV:
Dear Webmasters
As you will be aware we had some major technical issues on Saturday which created some connectivity issues for our users. This problem was caused after some bugs in the code on XML files that were being delivered directly into our infrastructure, the result of these bugs meant that some users were intermittently unable to access various services on the site.
We believe that we have found all of the bugs and have now deployed a permanent fix to avoid these problems going forward, however to ensure we have no repeat of this we will be carrying out a dry run test of all the systems and load on Wednesday afternoon. This will have no affect on the live platform but will give us additional comfort we have resolved all out standing issues.
Premium TV apologies for any issues this may have caused and if you receive any correspondence from customer, please feel redirect them to
customerservices@Premiumtv.co.uk where we will deal with them immediately.
Please let me know how you get on with PTV and whether they answer your complaint in a timely fashion. We will also be monitoring the service ourselves – if you have any further problems with the service please let me know.
Kind Regards
...now whilst surprised, it wasn't really helpful, and I still don't have answers to my key concerns, so I decided to press Ben a little more...
Appreciate you taking the time to respond. I wasn't able to listen to the Northampton game, so can't comment on any technical issues with Brunel FM, however my comments are based on being a subscriber to STFC World for 4 years now, so I think I can speak with experience.
Basically, I have had pretty much the same message from PTV that you have below. The problem is that they haven't really addressed my over-arching concerns, that is the service still suffers from the same fundamental technical problems it did 4 years ago, namely:
1. The Swindon Town FC commentary, more often that not, is not available until several minutes into the match, whereas the opposition commentary is fine.
2. That commentary, when switched on, cuts out every 10 seconds or so.
Coupled with the fact that the commentary for the Walsall game at the end of last season did not come on until 10 minutes after half time (after Jerel had scored!), my two most recent experiences with STFC World have left a more than bitter taste in the mouth.
I don't know whether its in your remit - I suspect not - to tackle PTV on the two issues above. If you want more evidence, I know several people on both the Town End and Red Army Loud & Proud forums who regularly use the service and have the same problems.
One question though. When I sign up for STFC World and pay my 39.99 (or whatever the cost is), who does that money go to? Yourselves or PTV? Whoever my money goes to is ultimately accountable for the service in my opinion.
I would be grateful for your thoughts on the above. Once again, thanks for taking time to address this matter, much appreciated.
...to which the nice Mr Lambert said...
Both myself and Chris Tanner (Media Manager) are endeavoring to ask PTV to provide an improvement in their service. We are aware that this has been an on-going issue for many years now. The majority of your £34.99 subscription does go to PTV, they are the revenue generating interactive arm of the Football League, with a small % re-distributed to the club via a central Football League administered fund – obviously the more subscribers there are, the more money each club gets. At the moment we have about 600 subscribers, which is on the low side compared to other clubs (34th out of the 78 clubs who use PTV’s service). We hope to be able to offer more video content soon, this was one of the primary reasons for employing an in-house designer.
I hope that answers your question, please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help at this stage.
Phew. After that lot, and if you're still with me, a little more light has been shed into what went on last weekend and the deal that PTV has with FL clubs. Sadly, my main concerns still remain unanswered.
Right now, I have decided to cease correspondence until at least Saturday. Lets see if PTV have made the improvements promised.
What I will say is that I strongly encourage all other subscribers to PTV to complain vigorously to both PTV and the Club if the service does not match your expectations. The more complaints they get, the more likelihood of them addressing the problem (possibly wishful thinking...)
I have cross posted this on RAL&P as I know a number of folks on there suffered similar issues.
