ITV viewers were left fuming during France v Ireland(Image: ITV)
ITV viewers were left fuming minutes into the channel’s coverage of France v Ireland as a big change to Six Nations broadcasting took effect for the first time.
It was announced ahead of Thursday night’s tournament curtain-raiser in Paris that television adverts will be shown in the middle of games shown on ITV during this year’s championship. It is a significant departure from traditional sports broadcasting in Britain, with advert breaks previously limited to half-time and full-time during live rugby matches.
However, ITV has introduced split-screen advertising to its coverage for this year’s tournament, with short adverts shown during natural breaks in play, such as scrum set-ups, while the live action remains visible on the left-hand side of the screen.
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The adverts are only shown once in each half, but it took just over quarter of an hour for the change to take effect as a commercial break occured during a scrum set-up in the 17th minute.
The 20-second ad was for Samsung’s Galaxy Fold Z7 phone and showed a group of fans watching rugby together on their phone, while the actual match commentary was muted.
Having been widely criticised online in the build-up to the match, fans quickly shared their frustration on social media after the advert break, with one telling ITV “this is not the US”.
“I’m sorry, did ITV just interrupt the actual focus of their rugby coverage for an in-game picture-in-picture ad?,” asked one. “AND we’re starting in a Thursday this year? Game’s gone.”
“Lol ITV muting the commentary for that ad was f***ing terrible,” wrote another, while a third added: “ITV p*** off with the ads during rugby, this is not America. We don’t need to see ads during live sport.”
“ITV thanks for ruining a perfectly good game of rugby!!,” said another. “Let people enjoy the sport without your money grabbing mitts! What’s next, a conversion ad?!”
“What is this bulls*** split screen ad about during live sport?,” asked another frustrated viewer. “This is not the US – don’t ruin our rugby with this s****!”
Despite leaving rugby fans frustrated, however, Six Nations chief Tom Harrison told the Business of Sport podcast that in-game adverts was a sign of tournament bosses becoming more innovative.
“One of the things we’re trying to do at the moment is use some of the issues in the game to our advantage,” he said. “So, for example, one of the things that we’ve been talking about recently is scrum resets, which is obviously a moment where everything has to be right before a referee is happy to effectively launch the scrum.
“We are using that moment now to create commercial inventory, which was one of the key reasons why we were able to get the ITV deal across the line. We’ve effectively got a squeeze-back in that moment before a scrum is reset. We [will] do it once every half, we managed to agree that within the Ofcom guidelines.
“So, there are elements where the game is being more flexible,” he added. “And we are trying to be innovative about how we can create new moments of commercial upside.”
