What's the source for this please?

ITV TV guide agrees that ITV are showing Columbia v Uruguay from 20:30 on Saturday night and Costa Rica v Greece from 20:20 on Sunday.

However, BBC TV guide is showing that BBC One has the Columbia v Uruguay match and Netherlands v Mexico.

I thought the weekend picks were sorted out shortly after Tuesday's matches?

EDIT: is it not the case that the BBC have first pick from all last-16 games? In which case none of the the picks could be decided until after tonight's matches.

EDIT2: Gary Lineker confirms Brazil v Chile on Saturday afternoon is on BBC One. The website hasn't been updated yet though.

BBC v Itv World Cup Ratings War - average ratings share after Day 13:

BBC - 34pct
Itv - 29pct
* excludes BBC3/Itv4

BBC maintain their 5point lead, heading into the final day of the group phase. At present, this is set to be the BBC's best rating group phase of a World cup since 1998. It is Itv's worst rating group phase since 2002. In World Cup 2010, Itv actually beat BBC during the group phase by 0.5million. The BBC has turned this around dramatically for this world cup and are beating Itv for this group phase by a significant 0.8million [5.1m vs. 4.3m], which confirms that the BBC chose the better matches and have a far better weekly reach to maximise their performance.

BBC has 1st pick, ITV has 2nd, BBC 3rd, ITV 4th....

It's not done by day so one channel could have 2 games on the same day if that's how it works out.

Obviously that would prefer to be avoided. I'd imagine we'll find out 2nd pick from ITV tonight

It's been pointed out in another thread that the 3 England stages of this year's Tour de France - The Grand Depart will be live on the main ITV. The rest follows on ITV4 as normal.

Extensive coverage of the Yorkshire stages on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th with coverage 12noon-4:30pm of the London stage on the Monday.

Good commitment to the sport from ITV. It won't set the ratings world on fire though.

It'll get battered in the ratings by the BBC's coverage of Wimbledon. Wont even crack a 8pct share imo. Shame Tour de France isnt on the Beeb, would be a much higher profile event if it was, with far more cross platform publicity of it. Only a peak of 2-3million watched Bradley Wiggins win it in 2012, had it aired on BBC1, you'd have been looking at 6million or so in that Sunday 7pm slot for the peak.

Can you expand on the "weekly reach" issue? I haven't seen it referred to before.

Murray has been scheduled to play last on Centre Court tomorrow. Expect some schedule changes and 'where has the regional news disappeared to' comments.

And heavy rain is forecast that may wipe out a lot of play

They'll probably just keep the roof on all day for Centre. I imagine it'll be filler galore on BBC Two during the BBC One afternoon transmission. I can't see many other courts getting much action tomorrow.

Usual end to the first week then, same as last year with Murray on BBC One all the way I imagine.

They should just show the same match on both channels or non tennis filler like Escape to the Country rather than repeats of old matches or VT's about Murray's victory or something.

Just a thought. If Murray does run past 8pm on BBC One, what would happen to the regional news and Celebrity Masterchef. Surely they can't drop CMC because the next week's episodes will become out of sync. And then they must have some rule of airing the regional news programme before a certain time. I think ideal for BBC One tomorrow would be Wimbledon until 9 - then EE followed by Regional News and News at Ten (extended to fill until Graham Norton).

I suppose they could reschedule CMC on Saturday since they aren't covering the World Cup either tomorrow or Sunday primetime. 9-10:30pm would be a good slot on Saturday followed by the news and a filler programme until the Match of the Day highlights. They'd only be missing MBB and they have a slot for Casualty to air on Sunday.

And in turn shoving EastEnders later. It's all very well people moaning about clashes but it doesn't help when the BBC make the schedules up as they go along. They need to pick a schedule and stick to it, whether that means Murray plays out his match on BBC Two or EastEnders is shoved out there from the moment the schedules are declared - at least people will know where everything is. It's ridiculous that BBC One can rip up their schedule for something like this when BBC Two already has the tennis scheduled for the slot (and I say this every year ).

Hope Andy Murray would be playing the same time as the BBC World Cup matches so the football gets dumped to BBC2

I think you are getting a tad carried away. It's only the 3rd round. Three matches, one of which is a Ladies match, shouldn't usually take 8 hours to complete at this stage.

The bbc has planned the Murray game very well. It will be moved to BBC One and possibly be airing around 7-8.30pm. The "Eastenders follows this match" sign will air throughout meaning that up to 6-7million EE regulars, many of whom dont normally watch tennis, will be included in the tennis rating and bump up the Murray audience. And it will damage the Itv soap ratings. Job done, tomorrow should be a good night for BBC One.

You will see the Power of the BBC in full action tomorrow. Murray just three weeks ago attracted an audience of 0.8million to Itv for a French Open semi final. With the Power of the BBC, you will see the audience tomorrow possibly be 6 times that. I expect significant radio promotion throughout BBC services tomorrow for the Murray game too.

I agree, its not been brought up enough on this thread which is a shame. ITV seem to be getting away scot-free with the 'weekly reach crisis' they seem to be experiencing.

There were three matches today which didn't finish until 8.25( with a 20 minute rain delay) so it's quite possible it could go as long( Through I don't think it will through)

You really are tiresome. How any one person can care this much about a television channel and hurting another one is just strange. And good luck with the 6-7m rating for EE. When this happened last year (Murray match followed by EE), EE could only attract 5.6m - so I wouldn't hold your breath on that one.

I'm expecting a revised prediction from you tomorrow stating the BBC have a target of 5m for EE on Friday night and it has been confirmed from an unknown source at the BBC.

I don't. It'll just be mentioned in the sports news like normal. It's only the 3rd round. You are a week ahead of schedule.

Remember though, we keep being told that Samuel is just like anyone else here, and there are many people like him. Aparantly I post stuff like that every hour every day as well.

The blatent lying about sources making up predictions, and the posting of the World Cup share update every day, basically word for word each time, has sunk this thread to new lows.

I said "up to 6-7m". That is the kind of audience EE peaks with normally. So that kind of audience will be tuning in around 8-8.30pm tomorrow night, who may actually stumble across an Andy Murray match rather than the soap, which in turn will bump up and boost the Murray rating. The strategy is very clever by the Beeb, they sure know how to get ratings. Hopefully they'll split the official BARB ratings for all the Murray games this year so it's just the match averages rather than just splitting the final's ratings, which would mean even more entries in the Barb top 10.


Theres nothing wrong with posting the World cup ratings shares averages and updating it day to day. It's not word for word the same each time. The only reason youre annoyed by that is because Itv is trailing behind BBC1 by so much, which doesnt make good reading for a fan like you. It actually takes quite a bit of time and effort to collate those world cup ratings and work out the averages, you should appreciate the information. Without my post, would you have known this was the BBC's best rating group stage of a World Cup since 1998... or it was Itv's worst since 2002? Probably not. I do offer proper analysis but you are so frustrated that it is not good news for Itv, that you just disregard my post as a "new low for the thread" when it's anything but. It is proper analysis I am giving you, but you dont want to hear it, because your favourite channel isnt exactly having the best of World Cups ratings-wise.

Please stop quoting him!

Agree with all of this.


The problem with the World Cup daily updates is how biased they're worded and come with some twisted agenda. In particular, the other day, the update read something along the lines of best this, best that for the BBC and for ITV, worst this, worst that.

All the facts have been presented fairly. It's just a statistical fact that the BBC have more positive records for this tournament than Itv. I did mention that Itv have the highest rating game of the tournament but that was the only positive record they have held for this tournament. On the flipside, they have shown the lowest rating game overall, lowest rating primetime game, lowest rating 11pm game, lowest rating 5pm game, lowest share of the tournament. It had to be mentioned. The bbc dont hold any of those records. Can you mention any positive records for Itv that they hold for this tournament so far besides highest rating? I can't. In fact the current group stage average for Itv is 0.6million lower than 2010, while BBC's is up 0.6million vs 2010.