[Scratch_Perry]

Quite surprised the primetime matches of France v Uruguay and New Zealand v Namibia are in primetime on ITV1 in the first week too, but the gap between what a mid tier World Cup game can get now compared to the soaps is nowhere near what it was.

Don't see why you should be surprised, if this was the football equivalent, they would definitely be on ITV1 (unless it was a final "clashing" group game).  But these games warrant main channel treatment in their own right, given one features the host nation (and many peoples' fancies to win the tournament) and the other features the joint winning most country.