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00:00The Six Nations is back and 2025 promises to be another blockbuster competition of rugby but big
00:08changes are on the horizon. I'm TV and tech writer Matt Morne-Hickson and this is all you need to
00:13know. So The Six Nations is returning to our TV screens from this Friday the 31st of January.
00:20It's going to run for seven weeks with five game rounds until the 15th of March with all
00:27the final games taking place on the same day as is always the way with the tournament but
00:33as you know it's aired on free-to-air TV or has been for a long time so it's been split
00:39recently at least between BBC and ITV. The rights are up after this current tournament
00:45and from 2026 things could look a whole lot different. So according to reports including
00:52from City AM, TNT Sports which is formerly BT Sports, they are in pole position to get the
01:01rights for the Six Nations is the current report in January 2025. TNT already have the rights for
01:08the Guinness Premiership, they've also got the rights for the Ultimate Nationals and I guess
01:14they want to wrap it all up in a neat ball by having the Six Nations. Now you might be wondering
01:19are the Six Nations not protected? They kind of are but they're kind of not. So we have certain
01:24crown jewels in sport, the tier one, the group A is the Football World Cup, European Championships
01:33of Football both in men's and women's, the FA Cup Final, the Rugby League, Challenge Cup Final,
01:40the final of the Rugby Union World Cup and things like the national, you know the big horse races,
01:48the Epsom Derby and Wimbledon and the Olympics. So they are required to be on free-to-air TV,
01:56they have to, you know, there has to be an option for them. Then there's a second tier, group B,
02:02where they have to have some free-to-air coverage but they can be behind a paywall. So for example
02:12the Champions League is part of that, so the Champions League has a highlight show which is
02:17Match of the Day at the moment, BBC got that recently, so there's a Match of the Day highlight
02:22show and then the rest of the tournament is on TNT Sports. So you'd have to pay to watch the games
02:30but you can watch the highlights for free and the Six Nations is in that tier. So TNT have said that
02:37they don't anticipate getting every single game of the Six Nations so there is potential that some
02:44at least will be on free-to-air TV but until the deal's thrashed out we won't know. But it will
02:52likely mean that if you want to watch all of the Six Nations from 2026 onwards you'll have to be
02:57subscribed to TNT Sports or go to a pub that's got TNT Sports and watch them there. So big changes
03:06are coming, we don't know, you know, it isn't officially confirmed, don't know what the lay
03:12of the land is but this may be the last Six Nations tournament that's all free-to-air.