ITV reveals Rugby World Cup plan

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Rugby World Cup: ITV has the exclusive rights for the 2007 tournament.

ITV has unveiled its multi-media strategy for coverage of the upcoming rugby union World Cup across its TV channels and ITV.com.

The broadcaster, which has the exclusive UK TV rights to broadcast the tournament, intends to simulcast live coverage of matches broadcast on ITV1 and ITV4 online, featuring real-time stats that will be displayed alongside the ITV.com media player.

France is the host nation for the Rugby World Cup, which starts in September, with some games also being played in Cardiff and Edinburgh.

ITV has also launched a dedicated website, itv.com/rugby, to host a range of content including three-minute highlights packages of all Rugby World Cup 2007 games.

There will be a RWC video blog and a guide and tips from former England international and 2003 world cup winner, Will Greenwood, to help rugby novices.

The broadcaster is also planning to offer exclusive "behind the scenes" footage as well as access to ITV's archive of highlights from previous tournaments.

ITV Mobile will support the tournament with a dedicated mobile portal containing breaking news updates as well as games, world cup anthem ringtones and wallpapers.

And ITV Interactive will provide "red button" access for news, fixtures lists, results, team and player profiles and match analysis.

New features for ITV's sports coverage include an audio feed directly from the referee's microphone in RWC matches.