Picture the scene.

You’re travelling and Twitter tells you that the final rugby World Cup quarter final is a tight affair. There are just minutes left, and a single score could send the match either way.

The final “northern hemisphere” side are fighting to stay in the competition.

You fire up ITV Player on your mobile. Be damned the streaming data cost! You’ll watch the last few minutes online as your train travels along a largely 4G route.

But first a pre-roll advertisement… which has to buffer before it plays.

You’re not interested. Time is ticking away. Sure, you know that commercial television is supported by commercials, but come on!

The ad ends and a loading icon appears… and appears… and appears…

Time passes.

Finally a second ad begins to play.

This is getting frustrating now. But you watch the ad as you have no other choice.

The ad ends and… another loading icon appears.

Oh COME ON! Not a third ad surely?

Well I couldn’t say for sure, because after about 30 seconds of that, I abandoned ITV Player, switched to iPlayer Radio, launched Five Live which booted up instantly and listened to what were now the final three minutes of the fixture.

Radio trumps TV.

(Or at least in the app world it does, particularly if it doesn’t carry ads).

Here’s a thought – if you’re down to the final scheduled few minutes in a live sporting fixture, then ditch the pre-roll ads. Because while pre-rolls are something the audience knows it has to “endure” ordinarily, they become a serious frustration at the end of a major fixture when the clock is ticking. And people swearing at your app and then going somewhere else is probably not what you’re after.