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ITV Sport is a sport producer and brand name owned by ITV plc. The company produces Champions League Football, Carling Cup and Football League highlights. ITV Sport shows live and exclusive coverage of the full Formula One season, and produces live coverage of the British Touring Car Championship and British Superbike Championship. Big Fight Boxing is another pivotal part of ITV Sport's portfolio.
ITV Sport programmes are usually broadcast on its main channel ITV1 (ITV Network), and digital channel ITV4. ITV Sport's main rivals are BBC Sport and Sky Sports.
The Director of ITV Sport is Mark Sharman. But from March 2007, he takes on a wider role as director of ITV's news and sport output.
Main presenters include Steve Rider, Jim Rosenthal, Matt Smith, Mark Durden-Smith, James Cracknell, and Gary Imlach.
Sports which ITV Sport holds rights to show
Football
Football is a significant part of ITV's sporting portfolio.
ITV holds joint rights for the 2006, 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cups, along with the BBC. The network broadcasts top-quality football from a range of competitions throughout the football season, with live coverage of two matches each Tuesday from the UEFA Champions League. They share the rights with Sky Sports. ITV get first choice on Tuesday matches, and airs preview and highlights programmes for these games. Both networks broadcast the final live.
ITV currently holds exclusive rights to the UEFA Cup, from the quarter finals onwards. In June 2006, the network announced that it had picked up live and exclusive coverage of the last three rounds of the competition for 3 seasons, starting from the 2006/2007 season. The network also broadcasts terrestrial highlights of the Football League; its main programme is The Championship, and the Carling Cup.
ITV's main football host for the 2006/2007 season will be Steve Rider, who takes over from Gabby Logan as the presenter of the Tuesday night Champions League matches on ITV. Logan took over as the main presenter after Des Lynam's departure in July 2004. However she received some harsh criticism from the British press after her performance fronting the network's Champions League final coverage between Barcelona and Arsenal at the Stade de France. ITV Sport bosses made the decision to replace her with Steve Rider, a former BBC Sport frontman, for the main presenter role at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. Logan was demoted to ITV's Uefa Cup presenter for the 2006-2007 season, she was clearly not happy with this and left the network on 19 December 2006. Other presenters include ITV veteran Jim Rosenthal and Matt Smith
Previously, ITV has held the rights to English Premiership football and the FA Cup. ITV won the rights to broadcast the FA Cup exclusively on terrestrial television in 1997, showing each final with Sky from 1998 to 2001. ITV lost the rights to the FA Cup and England matches in 2001, but had obtained Premiership highlights rights in 2000, which came as a surprise to the BBC, the previous holders and ending Match Of The Day (aside from FA Cup and England weekends). The ITV Premiership programme was titled 'The Premiership' and was presented by Des Lynam (himself formally presenter for Match of the Day). The show originally went out at 7pm, but this ended up being unpopular and a huge commercial risk by ITV. The show was moved to 10.30pm only a few months later. ITV then lost the rights in 2003 to the BBC, bringing back Match Of The Day on a weekly basis for the 2004/2005 season. One lasting effect of ITV's run was that the BBC locked in 10:30pm as the normal time for its Saturday programme.
On March 30, 2007, ITV and Setanta Sports picked up the rights to show FA Cup and England home internationals from Sky and the BBC. ITV will show live coverage of one game from both the first round and second round of the FA Cup, two live games and one replay (if necessary) from the 3rd to 6th round, one semi-final and the final (shared with Setanta), plus highlights of all other games. They have also picked up the rights to England's home qualifiers, away friendlies, and some home friendlies, plus highlights of other games.
ITV have shown every World Cup live since 1966, and numerous European Championships. ITV's most significant football moments include the World Cup Final of 1966. Whilst most of nation tuned onto the BBC for live coverage of the final between England and West Germany, ITV broadcast the event as well, with commentator Hugh Johns describing the winning England goal by Geoff Hurst in extra time. Perhaps the biggest ITV football achievement was its live and exclusive coverage of the World Cup 98 second round match between England and Argentina. Argentina won the match on penalties and a record audience, and its highest for a football match, of almost 25 million viewers tuned in to ITV's coverage, fronted by Bob Wilson.
Other moments include the Champions League Final of 1999, when Manchester United won it in the dying seconds of the match. The final achieved an audience peaking at around 17 million viewers. The Champions League Final of 2005 was also won by an English club, and live on ITV. Liverpool beat AC Milan on penalties, with a peak audience of around 15 million tuning in to ITV's coverage. Around 12.5 million tuned in to see Arsenal play Barcelona in the 2006 Champions League final, despite the English side losing in the dying minutes of the match. Sky Sports also broadcast the final as part of the joint Champions League deal signed in 2002.
ITV's highest World Cup ratings of 2006 was its live coverage of England versus Sweden, in the group stages, and it achieved a peak audience of 21 million, its highest audience since the England versus Argentina match at World Cup 98.
Previous ITV football presenters include Dickie Davies, Brian Moore, Elton Welsby, Matt Lorenzo, Bob Wilson and Des Lynam.
Brian Moore was the voice of ITV's football coverage from the 1960s through to the 1998 World Cup final in France. He presented and commentated on football for the network in four different decades. He died on September 1, 2001, on the day England beat Germany in Munich 5-1.
ITV's current lead commentator is Clive Tyldesley (also the voice of FIFA 06 and FIFA 07), who has won several RTS sports awards for best commentator. Other commentators include Peter Drury, Jon Champion and Peter Brackley.
The main pundits are Terry Venables, Andy Townsend ( the co-voice of the FIFA World Cup 2006 and the UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 for EA Sports) and Robbie Earle. ITV employed former Dutch international and Chelsea manager Ruud Gullit for the 2006 World Cup, along with Sam Allardyce, Stuart Pearce, Alan Curbishley, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Jay-Jay Okocha.
ITV's main reporter is Gabriel Clarke. Others include Ned Boulting and Dave Beckett.
Motorsport
Formula 1
ITV has covered Formula One from 1997, when the BBC lost the exclusive rights. The network promised to revolutionise the sport, by offering extended pre and post race analysis and complete live coverage of qualifying, thanks to a multi-million pound deal negotiated with FOM's Bernie Ecclestone.
Coverage was originally presented by Jim Rosenthal from 1997 to 2005 with Tony Jardine as analyst until 2001 when he shared the role with Mark Blundell. ITV also managed to secure Murray Walker to continue commentating as he had done with the BBC, his new co-commentator was ex F1 driver Martin Brundle, who would acted as a colour commentator, similar to the position the James Hunt and Jonathon Palmer had when the BBC aired Grand Prix
The 2001 United States Grand Prix was Walker's very last having missed 4 other races that season. James Allen moved up from his former role as pitlane reporter to replace Murray in the commentary box with Brundle still commentating as usual. Ted Kravitz then inherited Allen's old role.
In 2006, ex-BBC Sport presenter Steve Rider left the corporation to join ITV, and front the grand prix programmes. North One Television now solely produce ITV's grand prix coverage. Mark Blundell is the main analyst alongside Rider, with James Allen and Martin Brundle providing commentary, and Ted Kravitz and Louise Goodman on hand to provide updates from the pit lane. About 10-15 minutes before the start of each race Martin Brundle does his very famous and popular grid walk. He walks around the grid interviewing drivers and F1 personal. Since 1997, Brundle has given the viewers a guided tour of the race track that the race is being held at using on-board camera footage, usually from the driver in pole position for the race, and himself presenting the feature standing at key points on the track.
At the 2005 Belgian Grand Prix, ITV's coverage was not fronted by Jim Rosenthal, instead Angus Scott presented as Rosenthal was covering boxing for ITV. This was the first time anyone other than Rosenthal had presented F1 while on ITV. Angus presented again in 2006, this time for the U.S Grand Prix, as Steve Rider was presenting ITV's coverage of the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
ITV have been recognised for their world class coverage of Formula 1, and won countless awards including several BAFTA nominations and RTS awards, including best sports presenter (Jim Rosenthal) and best sports analyst (Martin Brundle).
To the contary of these achievements, ITV has come in for some criticism from fans for refusing to show live coverage of qualifying for Grands Prix in "inconvenient" time zones, although since the start of the 2007 season ITV will now show every qualifying session live on either ITV Network or one of ITV's digital channels.
Viewers have also been upset by ITV showing commercial breaks during races. Five 3-minute commercial breaks are taken during every race, around two or three laps depending on the circuit. Whilst most of the time no key action is missed, in 2005 the network made a serious blunder at the San Marino Grand Prix. In one of the most thrilling races in years, with 3 laps to go, ITV took a commercial break, missing those key laps and almost missing the finish of the race. After the race, they repeated the last 3 laps again. ITV were inundated with complaints from angry viewers and the server on their website crashed, ITV were fined by the regulator Ofcom afterwards. An on-screen apology was made by Rosenthal before the start of the next race in Spain two weeks later.
In 2007, there was the rise to fame of Lewis Hamilton of which ITV have covered extensively but some viewers have found it too extensively. Many viewers have been upset at the fact the ITV-F1 crew, with the possible exception of Martin Brundle, have shown an extreme bias towards Hamilton in the coverage. This led to the live qualifying session for the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix to be shown on another ITV channel not available to those without digital television. Instead, it was replaced by a documentary on the life of Lewis Hamilton. The biased coverage has also led to various pre-race features to be cancelled, most notably at the 2007 British Grand Prix in which Mark Blundell was supposed to have been shown driving in a Williams FW29 around Silverstone Circuit. This was put off until the race coverage afterwards.
Even Martin Brundle's gridwalks have come under recent criticism. This is due to the fact that Brundle interviews more celebrities, who usually know very little or nothing about Formula One, rather than actual race drivers. In 2007, many gridwalks have gone without interviewing a single driver or F1 figurehead.
ITV Sport won a British Academy Television Award in 2007 for its coverage of the Hungarian Grand Prix, where Jenson Button won for the first time.
Other motorsport
As part of the F1 contract, the network also shows highlights of the GP2 Series, the feeder series to F1. These programmes are usually broadcast a week after the events. It is presented by either Ted Kravitz or Louise Goodman, with commentary from James Allen.
ITV also broadcasts the World Rally Championship, after BBC lost the rights to Channel 4 in 2001, and Channel 4 then lost the rights to ITV. Coverage was hosted by Angus Scott, with Jon Desborough and Robbie Head in 2004 and 2005. However as a cost cutting measure, ITV decided in 2006 to take the international WRC programmes produced by ISC, therefore removing the ITV presenters. For the 2007 season, coverage was moved away from the main ITV channel onto the digital ITV4, available only via Freeview or satellite.
The British Touring Car Championship is another series the BBC lost the broadcasting rights to ITV in 2002. Coverage was hosted by Angus Scott and Vicki Butler-Henderson. Races 1 and 2 of each meeting are broadcast as highlights, with Race 3 live; the support races, such as the Formuka BMW UK and the British Formula Renault races aren't aired live by aired as Highlights on Motorsport UK which is shown late at night during the middle of the season. ITV's live BTCC coverage has been regarded as a big success, with regular audiences of between 1 and 1.5 million viewers for its live coverage on Sunday afternoons. ITV started its live coverage in 2004, and now broadcasts all meetings live. Commentary comes from Ben Edwards and 1992 BTCC champion Tim Harvey. In 2006, ITV broadcast the British leg of the World Touring Car Championship from Brands Hatch. For 2007, ITV continues its live BTCC coverage, with the last five rounds of the championship live on ITV. The opening five rounds will be live on one of ITV's digital stations, with highlights of those to be broadcast on ITV. Louise Goodman and Ted Kravitz take over, from Angus Scott and Vicki Butler-Henderson, as presenters of the BTCC programmes. Ben Edwards and Tim Harvey have been retained in the commentary box.
To consolidate its ever expanding motorsport portfolio, in 2004 ITV broadcast a brand new magazine show for motorsport fans called Speed Sunday. The show was mainly presented by Matt Smith and Vicki Butler-Henderson. Other presenters included Lee McKenzie, Angus Scott and Jason Plato. It include a mix of news and features from the world of motorsport, in front of a live studio audience, for 1 hour on Sunday afternoons, on alternate weekends to F1. Special programmes included live coverage of the Le Mans 24 Hours and the BTCC Masters race. Whilst the concept of the show was appreciated by motorsport fans, the programme struggled ratings wise and the budget was tight, meaning that the shows were cut 45 minutes and filmed on location instead of the studio. The show was axed at the end of the season.
In 2006, ITV picked up the rights to live coverage of the British Superbike Championship from Sky Sports. Sky still show replays of the races on the evenings of the meetings. Live coverage of all 13 rounds is also fronted by James Cracknell, with motorbike columnist Janie Omorogbe. Barry Nutley and 1992 BSB champion James Whitham provide commentary. Coverage of the British World Superbike meeting at Silverstone and Brands Hatch was also shown in 2006.
Boxing
ITV Sport has broadcast many boxing matches over the years, and broadcasts some of the biggest fights featuring UK fighters under the Big Fight Live banner.
In 2005, the network obtained the main share of Frank Warren's Sports Network fights (that had previously been aired by Sky Sports) and as a result broadcasts fights involving Amir Khan, Joe Calzaghe, Danny Williams, Audley Harrison and others. This ended a 10 year exile from the sport. Former high-profile fighters on ITV included Naseem Hamed, Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank.
In May 2005, ITV returned to the ring, with live coverage of Amir Khan's last fight before becoming professional against Mario Kindelan. It achieved a peak audience of 6.3 million viewers, encouraging ITV to reach a long-term agreement to show future Sports Network boxing promotions.
Other highlights since ITV returned to the sport have included the Joe Calzaghe's emphatic victory over Jeff Lacy for the WBO and IBF super-middleweight world title at the Manchester MEN Arena in March 2006. Despite being a poor fight, the first contest between Audley Harrison and Danny Williams in December 2005 achieved an audience of eight million viewers - giving credence to the fact there is large potential audience for top class boxing in the UK. Five's decision to show boxing ar part of a prime-time slot on Five US from January 2007 may have been influenced by this.
The main host of ITV Boxing is Jim Rosenthal, with analysis from Barry McGuigan and commentary from John Rawling and Duke McKenzie. Gabriel Clarke provides reports and also presented and co-produced a recent documentary on Joe Calzaghe - 'No Average Joe' - shown on ITV4.
Rugby Union
ITV hold joint UK rights to the 2007 Rugby World Cup along with S4C and will show all games live on either ITV, ITV2 or ITV4.
The network has broadcast every Rugby World Cup live since 1991, being host broadcaster in 1991 and 1999. In 2003, England finally triumphed in the final against Australia, at the Telstra Stadium in Sydney. ITV broadcast the event live, with a peak audience of around 12-14 million viewers, a record for any rugby match broadcast to a UK audience. The action was anchored by Jim Rosenthal and Angus Scott, with pundits including Francois Pienaar and Will Carling. The network received some criticism for relegating coverage of England's group match against Uruguay and the New Zealand v South Africa quarter final to ITV2, then a channel which the majority of UK households did not receive.
After the World Cup was a huge ratings success, ITV tried to obtain the rights to the RBS Six Nations Championship from the BBC; however, the corporation have retained the rights until the end of the decade. Most of the main rugby tournaments outside of the World Cup, including Six Nations, Guinness Premiership, Heineken Cup and Anglo-Welsh cup are broadcast on the BBC or Sky Sports.
Previously, ITV have broadcast highlights of England's home internationals at Twickenham in the Six Nations and the Autumn International test matches.
ITV also held the rights to the IRB Sevens tournament from 2001 to 2006. These rights have obtained by BBC Sport for the new 2006/7 season. This means ITV's only remaining rugby union rights in its portfolio is the next World Cup in 2007.
Steve Rider and Mark Durden-Smith will be the studio presenters for the 2007 World Cup in France. Sky Sports commentators Miles Harrison and Stuart Barnes will be 'loaned' out to ITV for the duration; they will team up for some of the tournament's major matches, including the final. They will return to Sky Sports once the tournament has finished.
The Boat Race
ITV won the rights to the annual Varsity Boat Race in 2004 from the BBC, who regarded the event as one of their sporting 'crown jewels'. The contract runs to 2009. Gabby Logan fronted ITV's live coverage of the event in 2005 and 2006, with former Olympic rowing champion James Cracknell. However she will not front the programme in 2007, as she has defected to the BBC.
Steve Rider was thought to be the likely candidate to replace her. He has already fronted numerous Boat Race broadcasts for the BBC. However, in an announcement on the official Boat Race website it was confirmed that presenter Mark Durden-Smith will front ITV's coverage of the 2007 race, on 7 April.
ITV's Peter Drury is the main commentator.
Against expectations, coverage of The Boat Race was the subject of acclaim from many quarters. The audience for the event hit six million viewers in 2005 and increased to 7.2 million in 2006.
Tour de France
ITV obtained the rights to this prestigious cycling event in 2002. The rights were previously held by Channel 4. Live coverage came at weekends, previously on ITV3 though now on ITV4, with daily highlights shows in the evenings on ITV4, and late night weekly highlights on ITV. Coverage was fronted by Gary Imlach. Eurosport also broadcast the event, with all stages live
NFL Super Bowl
America's biggest sporting showpiece is also broadcast live on ITV. The network obtained the rights to the playoffs and the final from Five, who now only broadcast the regular season. A three-year deal was signed for the 2005, 2006 and 2007 Super Bowls. ITV broadcast highlights of the playoffs preceding the final, with the Super Bowl itself live on ITV1, presented by Gary Imlach from the host stadium.
Darts
On 17 March 2007, ITV Sport announced they would be showing an all new darts tournament "The Grand Slam Of Darts". Live coverage will be shown on ITV1 and ITV4 as well as nightly highlights throughout the week of the tournament. It is unknown who will present this coverage, all though it is likely to be one of ITV's current sport presenters.
References
- "ITV scores in FA Cup rights fight". itv.com. Retrieved 2006-05-21.
- "World Cup ratings". BARB. Retrieved 2006-05-21.
- "BARNES & HARRISON HEAD TO THE WORLD CUP". skysports.com. 2007-06-08
- "ITV to air darts grand slam". MediaGuardian. Retrieved 2006-05-21.
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