Perform/Morecambe Player. What a crap company!

[Keith]

After previous moans & grumbles about this crap company, I had intended to just quietly un-subscribe and say no more about them publicly. I had written a polite e-mail of complaint centred around their consistent failure to deliver full match commentary (at least five times out of ten league matches so far this season). The complaint also referred to previous seasons 'frustrations'. Their response simply demonstrated that they hadn't read it and although I had suggested to them what they could do to 'rectify' the situation and keep me as a customer, they declined on the basis that this was a 'one off'!

So, I had cancelled last week and thought F' 'em, I'd rather listen to Radio Lancashire for occasional updates from Derek than keep paying Morecambe Player and then getting frustrated when it fails... AGAIN!

But, as I said, I decided not to have another public rant about how rubbish they are. "They" of course being the company that takes the profit not the lads who deliver the commentary who have become noticeably more confident, entertaining and professional in their delivery over the past few seasons. Even the Barnet fella last Saturday! Not sure why a Barnet fan was commentating from Bradford on a Morecambe game... that was probably explained during the first five to ten minutes of the match... when Morecambe Player wasn't working!

So to today... Phone call this evening, it went something like this...

"Hello, Mr Fitton?"
"Yes"
"Hi, I'm calling from Morecambe football club, we've got a promotion that you may be interested in".
"Okay" *thinks to self* 'someone needs to update their database if they are going to sell me something! Perhaps it's to promote Saturday's game, that would be good...'
"We're trying to get people to join Morecambe Player, we're offering access until December for just four pounds..."
"Err, can I stop you there, are you actually from Morecambe football club?"
"No, I'm actually from Perform, the company that manages Player"
"Right, so do you know I complained to Perform about Player?"
"...no"
"Well, I did, and I'm far from happy with the response..."
I read the e-mails and responses and explained how frustrating it was when it fails etc.
"...well, I'm not authorised to offer you anything"
"no, I didn't expect so, but you are at Perform, so you could speak to customer services now you have spoken to me and if you want, you can pass my phone number on to them"
"mmm, well, I can understand why you aren't happy, so I suppose you aren't interested in the offer?"
"No, so are you going to speak with customer services?"
"Well, there is probably no point, your e-mail was very clear about your complaint, so there's probably not much point".
"Right, will you please make sure you remove my phone number from your database"
"Yes..."
"Thank you, good bye"

So they will cold-call to get customers back but can't be bothered to listen and act upon polite complaints?

This company really are rubbish. I hope that when the club's contract runs out, they review it and realise that they could easily do this themselves and probably make more money by doing so. Unless the club is on an amazing deal, tell Perform to go away and take their flaky-service, advert-laden, identi-kit web site with them!

[shrimps104]

"They" of course being the company that takes the profit not the lads who deliver the commentary who have become noticeably more confident, entertaining and professional in their delivery over the past few seasons. Even the Barnet fella last Saturday! Not sure why a Barnet fan was commentating from Bradford on a Morecambe game... that was probably explained during the first five to ten minutes of the match... when Morecambe Player wasn't working!

[/b]

I'm the Barnet fan in question!!! I do the Morecambe Player interviews after games and will now start contributing to commentary as well. The reason I do it is because I'm a student at UCLAN studying Sports journalism and I do all the Morecambe work as part as gaining some valuable experience in the industry, so any feedback would be much appreciated

And also, it's not just Morecambe Player that has issues, a lot of clubs recently have been complaining and it just isn't on and Perform need to sort it out. Having said that, I would say to those who are thinking of unsubscribing to stick with it, because hopefully it will all soon be sorted out!

[mrpotatohead]

burnley fans have been complaining about player, and perform for ages, burnley fc have forwarded countless emails to perform, and have provided all fans with free access to highlights of their millwall game, burnley are actively seeking compensation off perform for very poor service, if i had player, i would cancel asap

[Christies Child]

I had an issue about registration and after a protracted series of e-mails with Customer Services I eventually got my fee back.

All I can say is that you need to stick at it and be correct in your facts and then maybe, just maybe you'll get your money back.

Until the club come up with either an alternative or 'do it themselves' my advice would be to stay clear.

Do I miss it? Well I miss the post match video interviews but as for the replays of the game...nah!

And as a Radio Lancs listener, I'm now a Bay convert on a Saturday. Ockers and Glen are doing an excellent job, especially the post match interviews and assessment.

[fletch_al]

burnley fans have been complaining about player, and perform for ages, burnley fc have forwarded countless emails to perform, and have provided all fans with free access to highlights of their millwall game, burnley are actively seeking compensation off perform for very poor service, if i had player, i would cancel asap

the thing is there is no alternative to full match commentry. I can only get to a handfull of games a year so having anything other than bbc text updates is great. i just really wish there wasnt so many issues. I certainly think the club should consider doing it themselves as (if it worked) im sure there would be quite a few subscribers

[Keith]

I certainly think the club should consider doing it themselves as (if it worked) im sure there would be quite a few subscribers

I'd agree. Added 'selling' feature for advertising? Tie the advertising on the 'commentary' with the match programme. Likewise, the advertising on the web site could link in with the programme etc. It is so frustrating because it shouldn't be so hard to get right.

And as a Radio Lancs listener, I'm now a Bay convert on a Saturday. Ockers and Glen are doing an excellent job, especially the post match interviews and assessment.

Might try The Bay on Saturday...

...or better still, I'll go to The Globe instead!

[Keith]

I'm the Barnet fan in question!!! I do the Morecambe Player interviews after games and will now start contributing to commentary as well...

You were very good for the full 80 minutes!

And also, it's not just Morecambe Player that has issues, a lot of clubs recently have been complaining and it just isn't on and Perform need to sort it out. Having said that, I would say to those who are thinking of unsubscribing to stick with it, because hopefully it will all soon be sorted out!

Well, it's three seasons now and they still can't get it to work. I'd rather KNOW I'm not getting the commentary than pay for something then it not be provided. Understanding that lots of clubs fans are frustrated explains why they didn't try to compensate me?

[Posh]

I can't tell you the full story of just how much of a nightmare getting the official website launched through Perform was. All I will say is that Perform have a monopoly on Football League websites. The site and Player are free so clubs, in theory, should be able to generate revenue very quickly. The truth is somewhat different.

As regards Player the likelihood of it and Perform being dropped is unlikely. One Championship club makes over £1/4 million in revenue just from Player.

[Keith]

One Championship club makes over £1/4 million in revenue just from Player.

How much would you guess a small Second Division club makes from it though?

[Posh]

Between you and me Keith.

Dear Webmasters

Further to the note on Club Central regarding the commentary issues across the weekend, I just wanted to ensure that you all received an email communication around this as aware that not all of you use CC.
I have completed the investigation around the commentary issues that were experienced on Saturday for the last 10 mins of matches and I would like to share those finding with you. Please see below explanation:

Issue:
The complaints were that the streams stopped and wouldn't connect for a period of time.

Investigation:

After internal confirmation that hardware and streaming services within Perform were working correctly, Perform raised a ticket with Akamai, their content distribution partner to investigate the commentary issues that were being experienced.

After looking into their server logs, Akamai noticed a defect, the Edgeserver serving the streams to the end user was having playback issues. This condition prevented the player from establishing a buffer required to ensure continuous playback. These playback issues are symptomatic of an 'Adobe bug' which Akamai have been working to resolve for a period of time. Akamai have implemented a process that runs on the servers to capture this condition, and the logs did show that it did eventually clear this issue, although unfortunately only post match. This resolution plan is being actively monitored and implementation schedules are currently being drawn up.

Resolution:

In the short term, going forward, if this happens again, Akamai can check which parts of their network (nodes) are carrying the stream and test from that part to see which server has the corrupted copy of the stream. From there we can suspend that node/server and the stream will be served from an alternate node/server thus resolving the issue.

In the medium to long term, Akamai has implemented a workaround to the issue which is running in beta in production now, whilst we evaluate it. We want to make very sure it is detecting this condition properly because the workaround is to forcibly disconnect and reconnect the stream when this condition occurs. This clears the issue but also disconnects the end users. If our workaround works as we intend, it should only disconnect players who are experiencing the problem and that's what we want to be extra sure of.

We will ofcourse be monitoring this again across upcoming matches and have made everyone internally aware of the Adobe bug and the situation. An escalation procedure has been put in place should this occur again, for a swift response and resolution.

Finally, apologies for the interruption of commentary and be aware that this is being treated with an high priority.

Thanks

[Keith]

Between you and me Keith.

I'm guessing you were being intentionally fatuous!

[Gnasher]

Perform have a monopoly on Football League websites

But not exclusive as you'll see from Accy's official web site. Shame there isn't a decent local web site company that would be more than capable of producing and running the official site Just because it isn't run by Perform, doesn't mean it can't still earn £1/4 million, does it?

[Christies Child]

Perform have a monopoly on Football League websites

But not exclusive as you'll see from Accy's official web site. Shame there isn't a decent local web site company that would be more than capable of producing and running the official site Just because it isn't run by Perform, doesn't mean it can't still earn £1/4 million, does it?

Moved recently into a Marketing / Business Development role Brian....

[Gnasher]

No but the MD of FatMedia should be familiar and he employs an ex-MFC webmaster

http://www.fatmedia.co.uk/Fat-Media-Team