ITV was "facing a battle to keep hold of the Rugby World Cup," on Monday night with virtually all major U.K. TV networks expressing an interest in the rights, "the value of which has soared following the success of the event in England last year," according to Ben Rumsby of the London TELEGRAPH. It cost ITV, which has broadcast every tournament since '91, £60M to secure the 2011 and 2015 World Cup rights after World Rugby "resisted a bid from Sky Sports to snatch them" in '10. The governing body "is not wedded to free-to-air transmission of a competition" for which only the final must be shown terrestrially under U.K. law. The current tender process "gives bidders the option" of buying the 2019 World Cup or both of the next two tournaments. World Rugby Head of Broadcast & Commercial Murray Barnett said, "We've been impressed with the number of people who have expressed an interest in wanting to be part of a tender for 2019 and beyond" (TELEGRAPH, 2/15). WALES ONLINE's Anthony Woolford reported the Rugby World Cup 2015 was "the most widely viewed rugby event ever." The live audience saw a 48% increase on the '11 event in New Zealand, with "viewers through 106 broadcasters reaching nearly 724 million homes across the globe." The U.K. and Ireland markets were "at the heart of the success story." In the U.K., host broadcaster ITV "achieved peak audiences" reaching 11.5 million for England’s matches against Fiji, Wales and Australia and the final between winners New Zealand and the Wallabies. In Ireland, TV3 "attracted its biggest-ever audiences" for '15 matches involving the Ireland team, while World Cup matches delivered three of the top four broadcast audiences in the Rupublic in '15 (WALES ONLINE, 2/15).
