Next summer’s Fifa World Cup will mark 60 years of the BBC and ITV joint-hosting the television coverage in a collaboration that has marked the test of time. But despite the collaboration, the event brings intense competition between the broadcasters over viewing figures and match picks, with next year’s tournament being no exception.
While the first World Cup was held in 1930, it wasn’t until 1950 in Brazil that British Football Federations were included, and domestic football fans had to wait a further four years until 1954 in Switzerland when the BBC first broadcasted selected matches live. Having been treated to live coverage, fans were again left disappointed in 1962 in Chile, when the BBC only showed highlights of about half the matches on a delayed basis. Incredibly the film footage was flown from Chile via the USA back to Britain, which resulted in a 2-3 day delay.
Not surprisingly, the next World Cup in 1966, held in England, had much more extensive live coverage. While famous for England’s victory in the final against West Germany, the tournament is also a landmark as the first time BBC and ITV collaborated. Since then, every World Cup has been broadcast by both stations on terrestrial TV, and the arrangement continues to next year’s tournament (and 2030).
BBC and ITV follow a process of splitting the matches between them, and then both broadcast the final. The broadcasters take it in turns to have first pick and rotate between tournaments, and for 2026 it was the BBC’s turn to pick first, with ITV having second pick and then alternating in turn. For this World Cup there were 91 picks in total, and each side is given 10 minutes to pick each one. That thinking time is added in as it becomes a very complicated, almost scientific process as each side tries to predict firstly which knock out matches will feature England and other home nations, and then which other contests will be the most popular to view. Other factors include host venues and logistics, scheduling clashes such as Wimbledon, kick off times and trying to predict which other teams domestic audiences will tune in to watch.
This time around it looks as though the BBC is backing England to progress deep into the competition, securing coverage of three of England’s knockout clashes in the round of 32, round of 16 and a semi-final – if they progress. In contrast, ITV has selected two of England’s three group stage matches. ITV will also broadcast the first matches of the tournament for current World Champions Argentina, and other key footballing nations such as Germany, the Netherlands and Spain.
The strategy behind the picks is intriguing. The viewing figures for the 2022 Final shows that when the BBC is in direct competition with ITV for viewers, it wins convincingly. The BBC achieved a peak audience of 14.9 million for Argentina’s penalty shootout win over France, while ITV peaked at 4.4 million. This represented an overall audience share of 58% compared to 18%.
Despite this clear preference for BBC coverage when there is a choice, across the tournament ITV’s overall match coverage attracted more TV viewers than the BBC, averaging 5.8 million compared to 5.7 million per match. The top three most-watched matches were all on ITV, with over 20 million watching England versus Senegal and 18 million watching England v USA. ITV also delivered big numbers on several matches not featuring England, such as USA v Wales and the Morocco v Portugal quarter final.
It is for these reasons that both broadcasters do their homework in advance of the selection process, and that in itself is a mix between science and instinct. In every World Cup there emerges some classic underdog stories that capture the imagination of fans, such as Morocco reaching the semifinals in 2022, Croatia reaching the final in 2018, and in 2014 Costa Rica topping a group with Uruguay, Italy and England. The knockout matches of these unfancied minnows can attract huge audiences, but there is clearly a gamble involved in selecting them.
Who’s taken the biggest gamble this time? Some would argue that the BBC plumping for England’s knock out games as against ITV’s getting most of England’s group games looks a bit of a punt. But it can easily be argued that the UK’s public service broadcaster has taken an even bigger gamble at very long odds for its first match of the tournament: Canada facing one of the play-off winners, either Bosnia and Herzegovina, Wales, Northern Ireland or Italy. We Welsh supporters can only hope the BBC execs have done their pre-selection homework properly!
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The above is accurate as at 1* December 2025.
The information above may be subject to change. The content of this note should not be considered legal advice, and each matter should be considered on a case-by-case basis.
