Rugby World Cup

Given the fact that dark blue and green don't work too well in a colour scheme together, and France's usual boring white graphics i'm very impressed with the graphics for the tournament - very 'userbar'-y.

The way they are doing the opt outs in the nations is really poor. Whether that's UTV/STV's fault or ITV's is not known.

Surely to not ruin continuing programmes, it's best to carry over a programme to another day and air it in prime time (like the BBC do), in the place of a one-off

Instead they are just shunting them to the end of that days's schedule. So tommorow's Hell's Kitchen is on at 11.55pm on UTV. Pretty much ruining the series for UTV viewers. Next week they've put Parkinson on at Midnight. On ITV Wales, The Bill is on at 11.10pm one night

Everyone automatically assumes that the opt outs are great and nobody in the nations cares about any of the network programmes, but this is obviously not the case

What can UTV do though. They (thanks to ITV) have the rights to the games and have paid their share of the price through their contribution to the network If they leave them to ITV4 as ITV plc are doing the revenue from people watching the games will go elsewhere, some to ITV plc, but more likely in UTV's case to TV3 and Setanta Ireland - they'll get zero benifit and the Ireland rugby team will have zero terrestrial coverage in the large parts of NI that can't pick up TV3.

UTV have made a big deal of their rugby coverage and so they should, they are the only broadcaster in Ireland showing the tournament that has ever covered an Ireland rugby game before! (Or any rugby game before, in TV3's case).

Personally I would prefer McGuirk, Hook, and Pope, but in their absence I'm turning to UTV when watching the games at home...

TV3 have a very nice set. Presenter's not up to much tho.

I doubt the majority of UTV viewers are as interested in Hell's Kitchen as they are the national rugby team. If England games were shunned on ITV4 there would be outrage, its quite right UTV show it.

Have UTV had a national news bulletin this evening?

The ITV News is actually live here in Scotland. I thought STV would just play a repeat of the bulletin which was on ITV1 at 6.40.

How do you know it is live?

Because the bulletin shown on ITV1 had Robert Moore reporting live on the McCann story, whereas the bulletin shown in Scotland had Rohit Kachro (sp) reporting live. Also on ITV1 Kier Simmons was live, and on the bulletin for Scotland, he wasn't.

Thanks for that. I suppose if you hadn't seen both, there would be no way of knowing

I believe news has to be live or they would be breaking the OFCOM code

What's the deal with the regional opts then? STV obviously had their own studio set-up, but did they just take the ITV4 commentary during the game? It certainly looked like that with the post-match interviews.

Incidentally, are Border Scotland just going with the network or are they taking STV coverage? If so how's that affecting schedules?

Is there a chance that Stevie (or anyone else in NI) would be able to upload any images/clips of UTV's own coverage of the tournament?

I am certain I wouldn't be the only one who would gratefully appreciate it - many thanks in advance and apologies if I am being too audacious.

I'm in the process of cutting out the good bits now!