The World Cup 2006

The only problem is that if they close the CITV channel early, they will also be taking programmes off ITV1, thus losing the audience and advertisers. Granted, they would get more for the football, but then again.

I'd personally say that they will close M&M down for a few hours from 3-6, and so keep the two audiences. The football audience for the advertisers, as well as the children.

And surely the majority of M&M viewers would watch the football too, wouldn't they?

EDIT: Thinking about it will M&M be on freeview at this point, or will it be ITV PLAY? Therefore, I doubt they'd lose the money makers.

Speaking of which, will the world cup on ITV bring a competition in every part of the programme?

Thats a very interesting move. Fair play to UKTV for chasing that deal.

I would say they've no hope - considering most people will watch the matches on the BBC. However if these pre-match programmes are creative and entertaining, they might try to hold on to viewers for the live match. And if their daily show features extensive highlights (like they did with the Six Nations) they could be on to a winner - as analogue viewers will probably only get 20-min highlights on MOTD etc.

The host broadcaster HBS has revealed samples of what the on-screen presentation and graphics will be like for the World Cup.

They're in a PDF on the HBS website, no idea how to grab the images to be posted here so here's a direct link to the PDF -
http://www.hbs.tv/download/graphicsamples.pdf

It doesn't indicate how or whether they'll animate in any way, so although I'm not that keen on first look, I'll reserve judgement until I see them on-screen.

Anyone know if BBC/ITV will use these or use their own graphics as BBC did in 2002 and ITV did in 1998?

I hope not, seeing both the 2002 BBC and 1998 ITV graphics were rubbish! I love the silver official FIFA graphics, and I thought the official Euro 2004 ones were beautiful as well.

Actually, those WC2006 ones are basically the official FIFA graphics just with 'swooshes' instead of circles. Think it looks OK myself.

Here you go...

They look really nice, especially in 16:9. Better than the 2002 graphics which have aged really badly (see http://www.hbssuperdata.com/TV_Graphics/index.html)

http://www.mromega.co.uk/images/wc1.jpg
http://www.mromega.co.uk/images/wc2.jpg
http://www.mromega.co.uk/images/wc3.jpg
http://www.mromega.co.uk/images/wc4.jpg
http://www.mromega.co.uk/images/wc5.jpg
http://www.mromega.co.uk/images/wc6.jpg
http://www.mromega.co.uk/images/wc7.jpg

These have been resized from the original 1024x576 res.

My only complaint is how "simple" they are, but that is to be expected from an international production.

I presume from the caps that each national broadcaster adds their own scorecard (even though they do usually), isn't there a usually a standard one created?

There was last time as ITV used a modified version of it.


And just how many football matches begin with a weather report!

All of the World Cup Matches do and it's a common sight in the NFL.

You'll never see it in the UK however as both the BBC & ITV opt in after it's been run.

Big deal, bunch of men kicking a ball around the field... This crap is going to cut into my enjoyment of dr. who Its not england are going to be in it after a 3rd of the way in anyway.


Its annoying when england come out of it and everyone talks that ''oh we should have won that'' nonsense ..

We lost becuase the other team played 'BETTER' than us, ill get off my chest before it all begins...

It's shown on the international feed Brekkie Boy, you never get to see it as the BBC/ITV guys usually opt in later on.

you are a very miserable person. Have you met our friend Boughton on Metropol? You two would get on very well.

Those flag things make me think of y-fronts. I don 't like them

And usually the BBC would add their own graphics to an international clean feed rather than take the dirty feed. ISTR during the last World Cup the BBC had their own graphics package but it was driven by the same graphics data feed - so on the BBC and ITV feeds graphics would appear in sync - but the BBC ones were in BBC style and the ITV ones in host broadcaster style.

Of course there weren't many places you could see both BBC and ITV match coverage live at the same time - they both came through TVC (as the BBC downlinked them for ITV as well as the BBC)