ITV Seals Free To Air Ashes Highlights
ITV has agreed a deal with Cricket Australia and IMG Media to secure the free-to-air highlights of England’s 2010-11 Ashes series in Australia.
The announcement marks the broadcaster’s first foray into televised Test match cricket.
Under the agreement, ITV4 will broadcast a one-hour highlights programme every evening at 10.00pm during the 2010-11 Ashes Test series, which begins on 25th November in Brisbane.
ITV4 will also broadcast highlights of England’s Twenty20 and One Day International series against Australia in January and February 2011.
The highlights programmes will be presented by Mark Nicholas and produced by ITV Sport and Perform.
ITV4 is the UK’s 10th most popular digital channel and is available to 93 percent of homes, free-to-air on all digital platforms including Freesat, Freeview, Sky and Virgin Media.
ITV’s Controller of Sport, Niall Sloane said of the deal: ‘There is huge demand to see England defend the Ashes and I’m delighted that we have secured highlights, free-to-air for UK viewers.’
The ITV digital channel had exclusive live coverage of the Indian Premier League Twenty20 competition earlier this year, attracting audiences of more than 500,000 for some matches.
Sky Sports has exclusive UK live TV rights to the Ashes series and the one-day and Twenty20 internationals in Australia and the ITV4 highlights will be broadcast shortly before Sky’s live coverage of the next day’s Ashes play begins each night.
