Beeb commentators and pundits in the future

I was thinking about this the other day. Who will be the commentators for the beeb in 10 or 15 years time. when virgo taylor thorne and davis are gone.you will still have Hendry and Doherty but who from the current list of players will join the beeb set up. The only two i can envisage being hired is selby and murphy for some reason. Your thoughts ?

Murphy will definately be in the commentary in 10 years time, as for Selby, I somehow doubt he would be very interested in it to be honest. Ebdon is also a player I can see doing some commentary/pundit work.

But who knows how things will be in 10 or 15 years time.. If by then the World Champs is in China and/or ITV take over the UK Champs, the BBC might only have the Masters as their only tournament.

Snooker can have their pick of the beebs golf commentators if they want.......another sport sold down the river.

In 10 years, we'll probably still have Virgo and Dennis Taylor there.

SnookerFan wrote:In 10 years, we'll probably still have Virgo and Dennis Taylor there.

You should be a commentator. You could regale the audience with tales of taking a rubbish and walking your dog.

Ronnie :)

I'm not bothered - I just hope that the old guard are gone. I get sick of hearing Taylor say the same old cliches over and over again: "the atmosphere is amazing", "you could hear a pin drop in this auditorium", "you couldn't wish to meet a nicer lad" and bragging about how he "was here when Ronnie made that maximum in 5 minutes and 20 seconds" etc.

I find Willie Thorne amusing because of how critical he can be of players who are much better than he ever was. Doherty seems to listen to what everyone else says and then just repeats what they have said as if he is desperate to try to make the rest of the team like him.

As for Virgo, you know you're in trouble when the highlight of your career is working with Jim Davidson and when you think the catchphrase "where's the white going?" is so witty that you make it your trademark.

I also get fed up of forever hearing the commentators bang on about Dr Steve Peters.

I'm sure Dr Peters is a nice man but we get to hear more about Dr Steve Peters than we do about most of the players. That can't be right. I wouldn't turn on the soccer and expect the commentary team to spend half the match discussing some physician who Lionel Messi is friendly with. I don't even feel like these things are any of our business quite frankly. I'd prefer for a snooker commentator to concentrate on the snooker rather than someone's personal issues or medical history. There are probably players on the tour who have had a vasectomy but I wouldn't want Hazel and the gang to devote copious amounts of coverage to analysing what effect this may have had on their cuing action or long pot success rate.

I agree with what David Vine said after the BBC got rid of Clive Everton "The loss of his contribution to the televised output would leave a large gap but, apparently, as we have seen in many other sports covered by the BBC, the trend is for celebrities, former players and star names to be invited to do the job of professional journalists and trained broadcasters." There are exceptions eg. Stephen Hendry, but, as a rule, I'm not a fan of big name ex-pros working in television after they retire.

Okay rant over lol.

Whilst I agree that Everton and Ted Lowe are the two best commentators there is in the main because they are/were journalists foremost, even if Everton was a player as well, the bbc are not going to budge on their ex-pros preferably with WC status, WC runner up status or a few majors so that leaves us with some interesting possibilities from the current lot:

Some shouts: (not entirely serious in parts)

O'Sullivan
Murphy
Robertson
Walden
Williams
Trump
Higgins
Dale
Stevens
Bingham
Carter
Selby
Ding
Hawkins
Ebdon
Dott
Lawler
Higginson
McLeod

Ding could be commentator for CCTV5 (China), replacing Pang Weiguo.

gcjdavid wrote:Ding could be commentator for CCTV5 (China), replacing Pang Weiguo.

He could be a commentator for the BBC, and would still talk more sense than most of their pundits.

I'm more intrigued by which Snooker players have had vasectomies now...

SnookerEd25 wrote:I'm more intrigued by which Snooker players have had vasectomies now...

I'm sure we could ask, most of then being on twitter.

Could Foulds get more work?

dale or swail wrote:Could Foulds get more work?

He's freelance, isn't he? He's worked for ITV, Eurosport and the BBC. Even worked for live streams on internet websites when the CL is on.

For whatever reason, he doesn't seem to have done that much for the BBC lately. Probably because they prefer the old boys network they've got going. Shame really, as he talks more sense than most of the clowns the BBC employ.

SnookerFan wrote:

dale or swail wrote:Could Foulds get more work?

He's freelance, isn't he? He's worked for ITV, Eurosport and the BBC. Even worked for live streams on internet websites when the CL is on.

For whatever reason, he doesn't seem to have done that much for the BBC lately. Probably because they prefer the old boys network they've got going. Shame really, as he talks more sense than most of the clowns the BBC employ.

The Foulds, McManus and Clive team on ITV are simply the Best BBC only has Hendry has their good commentator, on ES Dave Hendon isn't bad also.

but the team on ITV is pure class, none of that usual crap the BBC love with their commentators.

Everton Hendry and Foulds are the best 3 commentators in the game.the reason the beeb dont use Foulds now is coz they have gone with this ex world champ set up of late. Hendry Doherty Parrott Davis and i dont think Foulds is high enough profile for the casual viewer.he is a top class pundit

Meant to say the beeb dont think he is high enough profile for the casual viewer. But we have to listen to willie thorne's crap.

AC or LT? wrote:Whilst I agree that Everton and Ted Lowe are the two best commentators there is in the main because they are/were journalists foremost, even if Everton was a player as well, the bbc are not going to budge on their ex-pros preferably with WC status, WC runner up status or a few majors so that leaves us with some interesting possibilities from the current lot:

Some shouts: (not entirely serious in parts)

O'Sullivan - No
Murphy - Yes
Robertson - Yes
Walden - No
Williams - No
Trump - No
Higgins - Possible
Dale - Maybe
Stevens - Maybe
Bingham - No
Carter - Possible
Selby - No
Ding - No
Hawkins - Possible
Ebdon - Possible
Dott - Maybe
Lawler - No
Higginson - No
McLeod - No

Based on this list, I have answered whom I think would be likelly based on personality. I think McManus would be possible as well.

Ronnie79 wrote:Meant to say the beeb dont think he is high enough profile for the casual viewer. But we have to listen to willie thorne's crap.

I miss Everton in the box. He was the perfect to compliment an ex-pro. I liked his tone of phrase and useful statistics. It was a poor decision to let him go.

Roco wrote:I miss Everton in the box. He was the perfect to compliment an ex-pro. I liked his tone of phrase and useful statistics. It was a poor decision to let him go.

The BBC seem more interested in getting ex-pros in the box than journalists, which is a shame.

An ex-pro can bring some knowledge to the commentary box, eg. they can explain why a certain player might be choosing a particular shot, recommending what the best shot might be or explaining the difficulty level of each. Viewers who don't play regularly might not know these things, so it has value.

Unfortunately, what a lot of the BBC ex-pros don't do is watch snooker when they're not being paid to do so. So don't have somebody like Clive's encyclopaedic knowledge of players and their careers. Which is why I feel somebody like Clive should always be in the box, paired with an ex-player.

One person to bring the statistical knowledge, one to explain better the logistics of playing. You don't need two people trying to explain the same thing.

I just want someone who understands that less is more, like Ted Lowe did. (Though 'avoid dead air at all costs' is obviously a management policy). The non-stop babbling that is commentary today detracts from the viewing experience and the atmosphere. But then pretty much every innovation in coverage since 1982 has done that.

...With the exception of the SUPERB "opponent's face in a circle a la Peter Griffin on Wheel of Fortune" that I beheld for the first time last night in a Steve Davis - Bill Werbeniuk match on Youtube. Why was this technique not used more? buck cameras in pockets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgJ2ErWrXxo