2018 FIFA World Cup Russia

Traditionally the BBC coverage has been taken by other countries or BBC World which may also explain it. Not sure that happens so much now but it may be a convention that has just continued.

I don’t think the BBC coverage is going out anywhere else but it is being shown on BFBS and that’s for Army Personnel.

It wouldn't - for a long time, if ever - have gone out on BBC World for rights reasons. In the days before English world feed commentary some countries (who'd bought the rights themselves) would take the BBC or ITV commentary. They may still choose to now If they feel it would be better quality- in (I think it was) 2010 Al Jazeera / BeIN Sport took ITVs commentary. Theres a YouTube video of England v Argentina from Mexico '86 that has Barry Davies' commentary in phone quality, where as it was in 'full' quality in the UK, somewhere in the description / comments is / was the information that it had been recorded from TV in New Zealand.


I think the only World Cup output that is on BBC World is special editions of 'Football Focus' that don't contain any match or otherwise rights restricted footage.

I've noticed that Outside Source has been showing a fair bit of match clips - are news access rights fairly generous for the World Cup?

I haven't seen them specifically, but I don't think they are normally very generous.

When is that aired though during the programme?
If its shown during the UK only BBC World breakfillers, then they would be OK.

It was the top story! There was maybe 30 seconds of each match - perhaps they're just using their minutes judiciously and they're saving them for simulcasts, so that UK viewers don't get the rather jarring still photos that they have to use for some other events.

Just had a look at few bits from yesterday and its a mixed bag:


OS from World News (rather than the News Channel version) - World Cup footage is shown captioned 'Courtesy FIFA'. There was also match footage being used in the Sport bulletins.

'Beyond 100 Days' and 'World News America' only had stills and non rights restricted footage though. One edition of 'Newsday' was stills only as well, other hours used the footage. I wonder if its that any bulletins / programmes that goes to PBS stations can't use the footage?

So FIFA are being more generous than in previous tournaments when I'm fairly certain it was stills only. Far more generous than the Olympics when World can't use virtually any footage from inside accredited areas - so that includes the Olympic Park - other than press conferences on a delay.

My Tivo has both the BBC and ITV showing France v Argentina at the moment. ITV only for Uruguay v Portugal, Both for Spain v Russia, BBC only Croatia v Denmark. None for Monday afternoon, ITV only for Monday evening BBC only for Tuesday Afternoon's match and None for Tuesday Evening. Hopefully they will update for the correct picks for Saturday as I am out all day on Saturday.

The system that handles the listings has alternate schedules built in. The press get both the main and alternates (which is why you get those "if there is football on ITV tonight..." listings in the newspapers' TV mags) but EPGs and things like the BBC website which are also driven by that system can only recieve one so get the main. Which matches are put in the main and which are in the alternate are usually arbitrary.

From memory, I think based on the last couple of tournaments I'd expect the schedule changes confirming the match picksto be issued tomorrow and the EPGs on most platforms would update soon after (I know Virgin works differently but should be correct by Saturday morning).

Meanwhile in Australia its gone so well for Optus they've basically given up for the rest of the tournament and are letting SBS show all the games (having given them all the group stage games they didn't already have):

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/28/optus-sport-chaos-sbs-right-to-broadcast-rest-of-world-cup-in-australia

The Nordic countries tend to root for each other in the main -- although there's a healthy rivalry between Sweden and Denmark, there were some pretty glum faces when Australia equalised against Denmark last Thursday.

The SVT commentators were pretty ecstatic when Iceland scored against Argentina mind.