ITV went full on American last night in their coverage of France vs Ireland, at one stage when there was a pause while waiting for a scrum reset. ITV showed an ad with a split screen which has people raging.
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ITV showing split screen adverts during tonight's Six Nations rugby game. pic.twitter.com/fDPAMMQMzj
— Jono Read (@jonoread) February 5, 2026
Here are some of the comments online ..
Blame the greedy cunts at ITV. email viewerservices@itv.com let them know what you think. Strength in numbers 💪
Not a union fan at all but do advertisers not get that this almost certainly doesn’t work? I mean i switch off – or over – when adverts come on (or look at my phone – if its on radio i just turn it off for a bit) bit if this happened say during football? I’d hate the company.
Look, I don’t mind this. I don’t love it, but there is a lot of faffing about. If doing this brings more revenue into the game via higher tv rights deals and keeping rugby on free to air, then I can live with it.
The critical thing is keeping rugby on free to air.
Not sure why there is so much fuss about this. It was during a break in play. ITV are putting a lot of money into rugby at a time when virtually nobody else wants to. Let them run a few extra ads to recoup their investment
I get the need for ads but this is terrible execution, huge loss of screen real estate diminishes the content of both game and advertiser. There are better ways to do this, this is just lazy.
I’m surprised football and rugby hasn’t tried what TNT’s broadcasts of the Ashes in Australia did. By superimposing the normal painted adverts you see in the outfield on to the coverage of the outfield at certain camera angles. There was always one angle with the blank outfield.
They gotta sell ads. There’s a way of doing this that is less intrusive and could work, but just double boxes? If i was the brand I would kick off that my ad has appeared shrunk. This just looks shit. No one wins here.
Do your advertising before, after or at half time, NOT during the game
Look, I understand that Free-to-air TV has to be paid for by some means and we don’t want International rugby behind a pay wall but this latest intervention by ITV is just another slide into the abyss. There are already too many adverts before, after and at halftime in rugby coverage. We even have to put up with a silly ad break between the anthems & kickoff. It all falls well short of the traditional coverage we’re accustomed to on BBC. But apparently we have to accept if we’re going to watch for free, and admittedly some, just some, ads are occasionally quite clever or funny and possibly with links to rugby. But ads in any break in play are too far down the slope to trashy American style TV and sports.
This a step too far. ITV put so many advert in at the moment. It is just a money grabbing exercise. We are NOT baseball or American football. If that is allowed to proceed the game will take 4 hours. 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮the RFU needs to sign a contract with the BCC so we can watch a proper game without all the interruptions