Aviva Premiership Rugby Rights

I can believe this though, as they have a much greater quantity of matches, and this would raise the interest levels and mean more people are likely to subscribe.

I don't think Premier League football needs the profile boost.

These matches, perhaps a Sunday late afternoon KO, would work well on ITV1. I note though that the suggestion is that ITV1 will not be used, is featured in the articles., so I assume ITV4 would be the channel chosen.

I don't imagine Premiership rugby would be a big enough pull for ITV1. If BT wanted bigger exposure though don't rule out Channel 4 and Channel 5.

It'd be good for English club rugby to get a live free-to-air outlet - aside from the Six Nations there has been very little live coverage of English rugby on free-to-air TV (and the Six Nations is only free to air because the other Home Unions kicked up an almighty fuss when the RFU did sell the rights to Sky). We're actually currently spoiled in comparison in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales where aside from the Heineken Cup and the summer tours most rugby union is free to air.

Worth adding to this, though not strictly related, the ERC's deal with ITV4 has apparently not been renewed for this season, meaning there will be no free to air coverage of the Heineken Cup in England and Scotland.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2012/1003/1224324773572.html

Interesting that it states "commercial realities" in the decision not to renew the free to air highlights deal with ITV4. Wonder what that really means? That said, the highlights were shown by ITV4 on a Monday night at 19:00, and even then, there was only action from one game in each pool, and no action at all from the other.

But, that statement didn't state that there would be no FTA coverage in England or Scotland for the 2012/3 season. Just that ITV4 would not be providing it.

Point taken, and of course English and Scottish viewers with Sky/Freesat can still avail of S4C's coverage (in Welsh), but it'll only give them games involving Welsh clubs.