Old rivals

In need of a positive spin from anywhere, ITV can at least console itself with the plaudits for its exclusive live coverage of rugby’s recent World Cup. The oddity (probably unnoticed by most viewers) was that the channel’s senior commentary team and many of its studio sages had been rented for the tournament from its deadly rivals at Sky; rather, I suppose, like old Hollywood times when the likes of Bogart, Grable and Gable were hired out to a competitor for lots of lolly when their own contract studio couldn’t find them a part or, as they used to say,...