Following the first month of broadcasts on the new iFollow service we would like to provide an update to fans and subscribers on our future plans and developments.
As stated when iFollow launched, the live video broadcast is only available for fans who watch outside of the UK and Ireland and that continues.
Those who watch the games should note that, again as previously announced, the broadcasts are only available when fixtures are not being shown live by Sky or chosen as the international broadcast fixture.
Therefore, the games against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday 21st October and Bolton Wanderers on Friday 17th November will not be available to watch on the platform. Both are being broadcast overseas and fans should check listings in their particular country to see if the game is available to them.
However, audio commentary remains available to listen to via iFollow for both of these games, should you not have access to live TV coverage of these two games.
As subscribers will have seen – and heard – we have trialled commentary on the video footage at the recent away games versus Derby County and Middlesbrough.
The reason we have been able to do that for these two fixtures was that the opposition clubs are not part of the iFollow platform.
The EFL and their delivery partner Neulion, broadcast the footage that is received from the ITN camera that attends each game. They only receive one feed of the game and when it is received, they push this out to the two clubs’ websites.
In order for PNE to provide its own commentary onto the live footage, Neulion are working on a way to split the feeds, so that the opposition does not get the PNE commentary as well as our own fans, however, we have been informed this week that this will take ‘months’ of development and may not be finalised until close to Christmas.
In the mean time we will be providing commentary on the video broadcasts of the games where the opposition are not part of the iFollow platform. For the next two months those games are:
Birmingham City, Saturday 16th September
Hull City, Tuesday 26th September
Sunderland, Saturday 30th September
Fulham, Saturday 14th October
Aston Villa, Wednesday 1st November
Those games not listed above will still be broadcast, but will not have commentary provided with them.
The video broadcasts will begin every game as the teams exit the tunnel at around 2.55pm or 7.40pm for night games.
Our audio broadcasts for those in the UK and Ireland and those outside who chose the audio option, will continue to be able to listen to every single game.
The commentary team, with our commentator joined by a former player for every single game will be on air from 15 minutes prior to kick-off.
The quality of your experience watching or listening to any broadcast, audio or video, will always be reliant on your own internet reliability. Those on a strong, stable connection will get a better service than those using a mobile or weak wireless signal.
If you experience any problems at all with your stream, with logging in or anything else connected to the service you should either email ifollow@efl.com, where there is a dedicated customer service team to deal with issues, or there is also a live chat facility on the website. There are significant resources available on a matchday, to hopefully resolve any problems you might experience.
We will continue to work with the EFL and Neulion to try and bring forward the date of being able to add the additional commentary service to the live overseas streams of the game, but we will also – post-match – be adding the commentary to the full match re-runs and highlights packages that the club itself produces.
Please note, that these highlights and full re-runs are embargoed by the EFL’s TV deal with the national broadcasters, and will be uploaded as quickly as allowed after the game.
We hope that this answers any queries that supporters have with regards to the iFollow product and you can be rest assured that we are continuing to look at ways to further add to the experience and content of this service.