IRB Rugby World Cup: Austrailia 2003 - live on ITV

In a couple of weeks the Rugby World Cup begins in Australia and ITV1 has been showing reviews of the previous tournaments after The Premiership in the run up to the event - including the original presentation graphics plus the white ITV Sport graphics from a few years ago with the new ITV Sport logo.

Anyway, in general threads people have been asking about what time the matches will be and how they will affect GMTV etc.

Not sure what ITV1's policy is, but I'd guess they will show the first game, all of the home nations games, plus all matches from the quarter finals, semi-finals and the final. IIRC last time the third placed match was on ITV2, but I imagine they'll show it if a UK team is in it. Match coverage would generally be around 2 hours.

Therefore, I expect ITV1 will show (all UK time):
Fri 10 Oct: Aus v Arg (A) (1100) + Opening Ceremony beforehand
Sat 11 Oct: Ireland v Romania (A) (0800)
Sun 12 Oct: Wales v Canada (D) (0900); Scotland v Japan (B) (1100); England v Georgia (C) Perth (1300)

Sat 18 Oct: SA v England (C) (1300);
Sun 19 Oct: Wales v Tonga (D) (0900); Ireland v Namibia (A) (1130)
Mon 20 Oct: Scotland v USA (B) Brisbane (1030)

Sat 25 Oct: Italy v Wales (D) (0930); France v Scotland (B) (1130)
Sun 26 Oct: Argentina v Ireland (A) (0730); England v Samoa (C) (0930)

Sat 01 Nov: Scotland v Fiji (B) (0500); Australia v Ireland (A) (0930)
Sun 02 Nov: England v Uruguay (C) (0730); NZ v Wales (D) (0935)

Quarter-finals
Sat 08 Nov: Winner D v Runner up C (QF1) (0730)
Sat 08 Nov: Winner A v Runner up B (QF2) (1000)
Sun 09 Nov: Winner B v Runner up A (QF3) (0730)
Sun 09 Nov: Winner C v Runner up D (QF4) (1000)

Semi-finals
Sat 15 Nov: Winner QF1 v Winner QF2 (SF1) (0900)
Sun 16 Nov: Winner QF3 v Winner QF4 (SF2) (0900)

Third-place play-off
Thu 20 Nov: Loser SF1 v Loser SF2 (Play-off) (0900)

Final
Sat 22 Nov: Winner SF1 v Winner SF2 (Final) (0900)

Note all the times are stated as UK time, but I'm unsure if the clocks changing midway through the tournament has been accounted for. All info from BBC Sport website (nothing at itv.com).

With all of those saturday morning matches, looks like we may see quite a bit of SA:TV LIVE/GOLD

So looking at a few of these, typical schedules could be:



06:00 GMTV
09:25 Rugby World Cup 2003
13:00 ITV Lunchtime News
13:30 Des and Mel
14:30 Everything Must Go!
15:00 As Normal



06:00 GMTV: Children's Programmes and Diggin'it
07:45 Rugby World Cup 2003
10:00 SM:TV Gold
12:00 CD:UK
13:00 As Normal



06:00 GMTV: The Sunday Programme and Diggin'it
08:45 Rugby World Cup 2003 (including ITV News Summary at 1250)
15:00 ITV News Summary; Regional News
15:10 My Favourite Hymns
16:10 The Planet's Funniest Animals
16:30 You've Been Framed!
17:00 Regional Programme
17:30 Regional Programme
18:00 Regional News
18:15 ITV Weekend News
18:30 As Normal



06:00 GMTV
09:25 Everything must Go!
09:55 ITV News Summary; Regional News
10:05 Rugby World Cup 2003
12:30 As Normal



06:00 GMTV
09:25 Rugby World Cup 2003
13:30 ITV News Summary; Regional News
13:40 SM:TV Gold
15:10 CD:UK
16:10 The Goal Rush

You get the general idea!

5.00 Rugby
9.25 GMTV
12.00 Religion
1.00 News
1.30 normal

That's certain for 5th October, when GMTV is showing Yu-Gi-Oh on it's Up On The Roof slot from 9.25am to midday.

What the hell are you on about?

GMTV's been showing an advert advertising Yu-Gi-Oh five episodes 9.25-noon as part of Up On The Roof on Sunday 5th October.

It gets even more stuffed on Sunday 12th October.

As it's also the final race of the 2003 F1 season from Japan, With the race revving off at 5am, and the show not finishing until around 7.30, that'll leave around 1 hour before the build-up to the 09.00am 1st live game of the day starts up -
is it worth anyone from GMTV turning up that day I ask myself?

(note - and because of the other 2 live games going on until the afternoon - at the moment there will be no 'as live' repeat of the race in the early afternoon - anyone who can't be bothered to get up and watch it you'll have to make do with the highlights after 11pm)

They'll show Up On The Roof most likely. It only has an hour normally anyway.

You are missing the point. The RWC starts on the 10th, not the 5th. So I doubt ITV will schedule any then.
How are you so certain of your schedule? They haven't been published, you are basing them on your own random ideas and they are incomplete. The word you are looking for is cretin.

Anyway the 12th looks like a real feast of sport on ITV. I still can't understand why the BBC didn't bid for the rights, with their new found interest in rugby and the timings of games.

Has anyone got a link to an article from when ITV got the rights, as previously they had said that they weren't interested in the rights, but now they obviously have them.

There are details in the press release section on the ITV website (I think the link is in the Request Forum) in either 2001 or 2002. I think the deal also covers the next RWC.

I'll have a look around. Something that alarmed me about the RFU's 2007 bid (which was then lost to the French RFU) was other than the complicated system, the RFU were going to give ITV the host broadcaster rights, with no mention of a bidding process!

btw Brekkie Boy, it should be IRB, not IRC.

As I thought, ITV have the rights to 2003/2007: http://img.carltononline.com/corporateinfo/popressreleases/file/300701Rugby.doc

(from http://www2.itv.com/about/press/index.jhtml?section=PressReleases&year=2001 )