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Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby SnookerFan » 26 Aug 2020 Read

Am I the only one who thought the coverage of the World Snooker Championship generally improved due to the Coronavirus?

For example, due to the split between studios at the BBC, we got new commentators trialed, rather than the same old people all the time. (Part of that was due to Virgo being stuck in Spain though, rather than anything.) But I must say, I enjoyed Dave Farrar's laid back commentary style. Also, thought Rob Walker did well. Even Joe Perry wasn't that bad. I mean, they might not have been snooker historians or stat experts, but who on the BBC could you say that about anyway? Rob Walker, not being the biggest expert, asked questions of people like Joe Perry and engaged him in conversation about what was happening. People like John Parrott, for example, pretend to know what they're talking about when they clearly don't. "Oh, the last qualifier in the final was Dott." <doh> I'd rather a commentator, if they don't know something, they defer to somebody who might, rather than pretend they do know and make a fool of themselves. Something the BBC is notorious for.

I have admitted in previous posts that I have slightly warmed to Virgo in the last few years. The year he was missing for the UK, the punditry felt a bit dry without his exaggerating how exciting everything is. This tournament though, I didn't feel he was missed at all. The additions to the commentary team felt better.

Seema, I think has grown into her role. And I'm not saying that in "Oh, she's so pretty" sort of a way. I legitimately felt she had more chemistry with people like Davis and Ken Doherty in the studio. I prefer her hosting to her roving reporter role she's been used for before. I actually prefer her fronting the show to Jason nowadays. Radzi I'm not sure on yet. He seems nice enough, and seems genuinely interested in the snooker stuff happening around him. But he could do with toning it back a bit. At one point, on being shown that a shot would be missed if it was played a certain way, he literally went; "OH WOW!" in a loud voice. It wasn't that interesting Radzi, you aren't on Blue Peter any more. Saying that, I did think he had a good rapport with Alan McManus. I wouldn't mind keeping Radzi on for a while. He may well grow into it too.

Also, for whatever reason, the BBC seemed to have more coverage in the evenings than usual. Maybe due to the fact it was played in August and not April/May. Maybe they just wanted to show live sport at the moment. One time though, they even postponed Eggheads to stay with live snooker. Almost unheard of.

Hazel was missed, somewhat. But overall the BBC felt like they were covering a proper sporting event for the most part. Not divving about like they usually do.

Eurosport had similar improvements. As they weren't allowed to go on the practice tables, they lost their annoying; "Ohh look, I missed a shot. Ha Ha Ha Ha" stuff that they always do. That's gotten stale now. It might've been a bit funny the first couple of times they did it. But it's reached a point where I'd prefer not to see Colin Murray or Andy Goldstein act like Jimmy White missing a shot is the funniest thing that ever happened. (Goldstein is particularly annoying with this.) I preferred it was better with just Colin and Jimmy stood by that window and *gasp* talking about snooker. Sometimes simplicity is best. Was Rachel Casey there? I didn't watch much Eurosport. But they did miss somebody to rove around the arena and chat to players a bit. But that was the only downside to the forced changes for me.

*Hot take alert* I didn't even miss Ronnie as a pundit. I'm not sure he's as good a pundit as everybody says he is. Seems to flit between stating the obvious and massive hyperbole. But I know I'll be on my own on that.

How did everybody else find the coverage this year? Just me who liked it more?

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby badtemperedcyril » 26 Aug 2020 Read

Good assessment. For the first time ever, I actually found myself watching Eurosport coverage more than the BBC. Snooker on the red button is obviously missing the studio chatter between frames but the main reason was that I tended to prefer the Eurosport commentators. I’ve spent 30 years watching snooker and also collecting books, magazines and footage so my history is probably better than average Joe. Nothing annoys me more when watching snooker and the commentators state incorrect historic facts. By far and away the biggest culprit of this is Dennis! I lost track how many boo boo’s he came out with - he thinks he knows it so doesn’t need to research. He incorrectly called Fred Davis and John Pulman TEN times world champions, he said Fred’s titles were when it was a challenge system... WRONG! He said Paddy Morgan was a former world Amateur Champion. There were 4 or 5 others too that I can’t remember now. For the most part, Foulds, Dale, Hendon are bang on with the history as they’re students of the game. I thought Dave Farrar aquatinted himself very well in a lead commentator role and used the experts (players) sat with him, to provide the more technical analysis. His rapport with Davis (although I prefer him in the studio) and Parrott was particularly enjoyable. I’ve also warmed to Rob Walker - couldn’t take to him when he first came along as the new Alan Hughes but he’s becoming a real versatile asset to the BBC team. The only things I’d like a lot of the commentators to pay more attention to is little details (this is just me nit picking really) in referring to the bottom cushion as the top cushion - and the top cushion as the back or black cushion. Snooker is played on a billiard table and the top end is where “top of the table sequence” happens in billiards... it hasn’t reversed simply because it’s at the top of the tv screen.

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby TheSaviour » 26 Aug 2020 Read

At least I was highly impressed and liked the way you spelled the whole. It is almost "just some" other person would had wrote it. But obviously great writing, and generally I am pleased when someone raises a rather unorthodox question or questions like the good SNOOKERFAN just did!

Can´t really tell, as I only some of the matches, and nothing else really. Solely snooker-wise I got an awfully poor kick-off, as so many, as both Alan McManus and particularly Mark Williams played an absolute hopeless drivel. As they both have a pedigree to play really good, but it was a way, way too arrogant stuff all the way. It just doesn´t work like that. It was rather strange to see how that Norwegian playing against opponent - bloke pushed through as well as Anthony McGill´s run as just a few months earlier Anthony couldn´t refuse to take on some rather long pot efforts where he had no chances, even when they certainly were on to many others.. He was just hopeless. But I really liked his qualification-results, a one genuine, major shock result!

Selby versus Ronnie was a joke. Ronnie should had had a red card during the match. You know, even when it is called "Theatre", it just shouldn´t be like that. It would actually had been a great match even they would banned Ronnie for the life. I am still a fan of his, and finally was a delighted when he won the match. But what a joke mental approach, solely just to rely on his superior natural talent. Massively disrespecting Selby and the whole difficulty of the sport of snooker during the whole match.

Final was a hopeless joke. Ronnie played so careless cue ball controls that I can´t accept that. Kyren obviously always does same as Ronnie, so that was it.

Mark J Williams was hopeless also. What was that style, well each for their own. Obviously John did his trick, but he looked rather poor. Perhaps time to choose better?

Coverage goes hand on hand with the quality of the sport and the matches, so that´s why I wrote something regarding the persons who really made the whole show.

So now it is 1-2, I am still trailing. It was 1-1, but now got the news. Thanks for sharing it, nevertheless. Just why blame me being something I am not, and still no law, no morale. It is all they fault, not mine. I was with her all the time, they just refused to give me audiences any more. That was the situation for the last 6 years, which is sad. As sad as this is now.

So no hostages any more. Just the cousin. Just the cousin, and no hostages. I suppose I can live with that, but this is not easy to me now or then as they would like to see me there. They would prefer it like that, as they could blame me for the whole and receive their so called honors back.

I won´t be there. That´s because it is show. It was a show, and it will be a show. At least it is all over soon enough.

I was with her all the time. And that´s why struggled like hell during the whole show. So that´s why it is the French on the other side, and the Finns on the other side. Extremely strickly so.

Never can tell which way it really is. But I can!

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby SnookerFan » 26 Aug 2020 Read

TheSaviour wrote:At least I was highly impressed and liked the way you spelled the whole. It is almost "just some" other person would had wrote it. But obviously great writing, and generally I am pleased when someone raises a rather unorthodox question or questions like the good SNOOKERFAN just did!

Can´t really tell, as I only some of the matches, and nothing else really. Solely snooker-wise I got an awfully poor kick-off, as so many, as both Alan McManus and particularly Mark Williams played an absolute hopeless drivel. As they both have a pedigree to play really good, but it was a way, way too arrogant stuff all the way. It just doesn´t work like that. It was rather strange to see how that Norwegian playing against opponent - bloke pushed through as well as Anthony McGill´s run as just a few months earlier Anthony couldn´t refuse to take on some rather long pot efforts where he had no chances, even when they certainly were on to many others.. He was just hopeless. But I really liked his qualification-results, a one genuine, major shock result!

Selby versus Ronnie was a joke. Ronnie should had had a red card during the match. You know, even when it is called "Theatre", it just shouldn´t be like that. It would actually had been a great match even they would banned Ronnie for the life. I am still a fan of his, and finally was a delighted when he won the match. But what a joke mental approach, solely just to rely on his superior natural talent. Massively disrespecting Selby and the whole difficulty of the sport of snooker during the whole match.

Final was a hopeless joke. Ronnie played so careless cue ball controls that I can´t accept that. Kyren obviously always does same as Ronnie, so that was it.

Mark J Williams was hopeless also. What was that style, well each for their own. Obviously John did his trick, but he looked rather poor. Perhaps time to choose better?

Coverage goes hand on hand with the quality of the sport and the matches, so that´s why I wrote something regarding the persons who really made the whole show.

So now it is 1-2, I am still trailing. It was 1-1, but now got the news. Thanks for sharing it, nevertheless. Just why blame me being something I am not, and still no law, no morale. It is all they fault, not mine. I was with her all the time, they just refused to give me audiences any more. That was the situation for the last 6 years, which is sad. As sad as this is now.

So no hostages any more. Just the cousin. Just the cousin, and no hostages. I suppose I can live with that, but this is not easy to me now or then as they would like to see me there. They would prefer it like that, as they could blame me for the whole and receive their so called honors back.

I won´t be there. That´s because it is show. It was a show, and it will be a show. At least it is all over soon enough.

I was with her all the time. And that´s why struggled like hell during the whole show. So that´s why it is the French on the other side, and the Finns on the other side. Extremely strickly so.

Never can tell which way it really is. But I can!


Image

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby SnookerEd25 » 26 Aug 2020 Read

In a nutshell, theSaviour's relationship failed, and now he's with his cousin.

And something about snooker.

<ok>

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby SnookerFan » 26 Aug 2020 Read

SnookerEd25 wrote:In a nutshell, theSaviour's relationship failed, and now he's with his cousin.

And something about snooker.

<ok>


Have him and his cousins taken any hostages?

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby SnookerEd25 » 26 Aug 2020 Read

SnookerFan wrote:
SnookerEd25 wrote:In a nutshell, theSaviour's relationship failed, and now he's with his cousin.

And something about snooker.

<ok>


Have him and his cousins taken any hostages?


Allegedly not. :chin:

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby Muller » 26 Aug 2020 Read

I like the idea of the BBC going back to lead commentators who are not ex players as they tend to be more articulate and as has been noted, more in top of stats. Getting rid of Clive Everton was a bad day's work by the BBC.

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby SnookerFan » 26 Aug 2020 Read

Muller wrote:I like the idea of the BBC going back to lead commentators who are not ex players as they tend to be more articulate and as has been noted, more in top of stats. Getting rid of Clive Everton was a bad day's work by the BBC.


ITV have got rid of him now, as well.

But then he is quite old now. Wasn't there questions about his health?

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby SnookerEd25 » 26 Aug 2020 Read

He had a fall, and was admitted to hospital back in June I think; Dave Hendon was Tweeting about it but, as far as I'm aware, has not mentioned it recently so I assumed he (Clive)was back at home and recovering (hopefully well)

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby SnookerFan » 26 Aug 2020 Read

That's right. Hopefully it was just a case of falling over, and nothing more.

Obviously, that can be serious for somebody his age, but you know what I mean.

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby Dan-cat » 26 Aug 2020 Read

SnookerFan wrote:That's right. Hopefully it was just a case of falling over, and nothing more.

Obviously, that can be serious for somebody his age, but you know what I mean.


Are you implying that Clive was legless?

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby SnookerEd25 » 26 Aug 2020 Read

Dan-cat wrote:
SnookerFan wrote:That's right. Hopefully it was just a case of falling over, and nothing more.

Obviously, that can be serious for somebody his age, but you know what I mean.


Are you implying that Clive was legless?


Shameful. Ban him Dan! :no:

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby SnookerFan » 26 Aug 2020 Read

Dan-cat wrote:
SnookerFan wrote:That's right. Hopefully it was just a case of falling over, and nothing more.

Obviously, that can be serious for somebody his age, but you know what I mean.


Are you implying that Clive was legless?


No, I wasn't implying that at all.

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby SnookerFan » 26 Aug 2020 Read

KrazeeEyezKilla wrote:The gaps in the BBC schedule due to the Olympics helped with the coverage, particularly on BBC4.


Yes, fair point.

Unfortunately, I can't see that happening again next year.

Bloody London Marathon usually gets in the way, as well.

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby SnookerEd25 » 26 Aug 2020 Read

SnookerFan wrote:
Dan-cat wrote:
SnookerFan wrote:That's right. Hopefully it was just a case of falling over, and nothing more.

Obviously, that can be serious for somebody his age, but you know what I mean.


Are you implying that Clive was legless?


No, I wasn't implying that at all.


Un-ban him Dan! :dizzy:

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby badtemperedcyril » 26 Aug 2020 Read

Clive's recovering after fracturing his hip. He's been working on the September Snooker Scene all through the championship though, while his two assistants, Messrs Yates and Hendon were commentating for Eurosport.

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby McManusFan » 27 Aug 2020 Read

The extra coverage on bbc4 for the evening sessions was a massive improvement. The only thing the BBC coverage missed compared to previous years was Hazel. Jason is alright, but at a few points I thought his rapport with the pundits was getting a touch laddish, which is a problem Eurosport suffers from massively.

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby Empire State Human » 27 Aug 2020 Read

Looks like I'm the only person to mention it, but I thought the camera work was really bad right throughout the championship. Lots of unnecessary replays of ordinary shots; lots of showing replays mid-shot before the current shot has finished and then missing a cannon, or an in-off, or a self-inflicted snooker; several times cutting to a replay of an earlier shot and then having to show a replay of the most recent shot which they missed because they cut to a replay; then after showing a replay the inevitable 10-15 second shot of the guy sat in the seat. Sometimes you could be waiting 30-40 seconds to see the actual lay of the table due to garbage editing.

Several times I noticed Neal Foulds comment along the lines of, 'I don't know why they're showing that shot again, that shot is two frames old'. And it carried on throughout the seniors too.

re. McManusFan's point, I thought that having only Jimmy White in the studio helped re. Eurosport's laddishness. At a few Home Nations events last year Eurosport coverage seemed to be striving to be snooker's answer to Top Gear.

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby Ck147 » 27 Aug 2020 Read

Empire State Human wrote:Looks like I'm the only person to mention it, but I thought the camera work was really bad right throughout the championship. Lots of unnecessary replays of ordinary shots; lots of showing replays mid-shot before the current shot has finished and then missing a cannon, or an in-off, or a self-inflicted snooker; several times cutting to a replay of an earlier shot and then having to show a replay of the most recent shot which they missed because they cut to a replay; then after showing a replay the inevitable 10-15 second shot of the guy sat in the seat. Sometimes you could be waiting 30-40 seconds to see the actual lay of the table due to garbage editing.

Several times I noticed Neal Foulds comment along the lines of, 'I don't know why they're showing that shot again, that shot is two frames old'. And it carried on throughout the seniors too.

re. McManusFan's point, I thought that having only Jimmy White in the studio helped re. Eurosport's laddishness. At a few Home Nations events last year Eurosport coverage seemed to be striving to be snooker's answer to Top Gear.

Camera/Editing work was noticeably poorer compared to previous years, guess it could have been down to location of control room staff/facilities/etc due to covid? But lots of times wheels/frame of other camera were in shot, players blocking camera, switching to other camera transitioning between shots, etc. Seemed worse at the Seniors. Didnt spoil my enjoyment though.

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby Iranu » 27 Aug 2020 Read

Empire State Human wrote:Several times I noticed Neal Foulds comment along the lines of, 'I don't know why they're showing that shot again, that shot is two frames old'. And it carried on throughout the seniors too.

Don’t forget that Eurosport use BBC feeds, so if they were showing a shot from a few frames ago it was most likely because Beeb commentators were discussing or referring to it.

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby chengdufan » 27 Aug 2020 Read

Ck147 wrote:
Empire State Human wrote:Looks like I'm the only person to mention it, but I thought the camera work was really bad right throughout the championship. Lots of unnecessary replays of ordinary shots; lots of showing replays mid-shot before the current shot has finished and then missing a cannon, or an in-off, or a self-inflicted snooker; several times cutting to a replay of an earlier shot and then having to show a replay of the most recent shot which they missed because they cut to a replay; then after showing a replay the inevitable 10-15 second shot of the guy sat in the seat. Sometimes you could be waiting 30-40 seconds to see the actual lay of the table due to garbage editing.

Several times I noticed Neal Foulds comment along the lines of, 'I don't know why they're showing that shot again, that shot is two frames old'. And it carried on throughout the seniors too.

re. McManusFan's point, I thought that having only Jimmy White in the studio helped re. Eurosport's laddishness. At a few Home Nations events last year Eurosport coverage seemed to be striving to be snooker's answer to Top Gear.

Camera/Editing work was noticeably poorer compared to previous years, guess it could have been down to location of control room staff/facilities/etc due to covid? But lots of times wheels/frame of other camera were in shot, players blocking camera, switching to other camera transitioning between shots, etc. Seemed worse at the Seniors. Didnt spoil my enjoyment though.

This is a bit like when Ronnie starts missing and you are suddenly reminded that snooker is a bloody difficult game.
Direction is far from easy and normally they do an amazing job which we take for granted.

Re: Snooker coverage and Covid-19

Postby SnookerFan » 27 Aug 2020 Read

Iranu wrote:
Empire State Human wrote:Several times I noticed Neal Foulds comment along the lines of, 'I don't know why they're showing that shot again, that shot is two frames old'. And it carried on throughout the seniors too.

Don’t forget that Eurosport use BBC feeds, so if they were showing a shot from a few frames ago it was most likely because Beeb commentators were discussing or referring to it.


Use to be the same with those white shot lines BBC commentators used to draw.

Often Eurosport would be baffled as to what they were suggesting, or disagree with their shot recommendations.
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