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Re: Why is Sky Sports so apathetic towards Snooker?

Postby Skullman

Still all rubbish clock stuff.

Anyway, I can't remember the exact quote, but apparently modern audiences don't have the attention span to handle a full snooker match.

Edit: Found an article from Snooker Scene Blog which explains it pretty well: http://www.snookerscene.blogspot.co.uk/ ... r-sky.html
Last edited by Skullman on 14 Sep 2012, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Why is Sky Sports so apathetic towards Snooker?

Postby PLtheRef

I follow the three SKY events when I can, because I'm a fan of the game and thought it appears apathetic. They still cover three snooker tournaments which adds up to around 75 hours of Snooker coverage over the season.

With SKY the players haven't helped the game. There was something mentioned on Dave Hendon's blog I believe where the renegotiations with SKY led to BSKYB producing a selection of cuttings where the players were belittling the tournament as it was just before the UK or the Crucible. Naturally, SKY's position was why should they show them then?

SKY could do a big job on one of the big three. Snooker and Darts in terms of demands on time and presentation are roughly the same. They always have been but however whilst the BBC remain interested in snooker, they'll retain them.

Re: Why is Sky Sports so apathetic towards Snooker?

Postby Wildey

a Guy who used to work for Sky who is a member at The Snooker Forum said Sky would be interested in the World even the UK in a heartbeat but they wont play second fiddle to the BBC.

Re: Why is Sky Sports so apathetic towards Snooker?

Postby Smart

I struggle to criticise Sky here as I am grateful for what they have done to other sports of which I am very keen. For instance I can remember the days when England would go on tour (cricket) and at best the Beeb would give 30 minutes highlights each day. Then along came Sky and the coverage of England tours and then the county game was taken to a whole new level. They simply chuck loads of resources at the sport and the end product is second to none. When I was a child I listened to radio 4 long wave as they picked up ABCs coverage down under. I enjoyed it and as they say the words paint a thousand pictures but when I got Sky (pretty soon after I got my first job) I was in my element.

Football in the pre-Sky days consisted of watching Match of the Day religiously - because if you didnt then you would completely lose track of where football was at. But even then they would focus on 1 game and very little of any of the other games. Nowadays MotD covers all the games. Sky came along and invested in the sport, giving proper build up to games, giving so much analysis, camera angles and the total coverage that the fans of the game really want. I can watch football on most nights of the footie season with Sky.

Darts - before Sky came along the Beeb would cover the world champs and little else. The coverage was poor and there was not a sense that they really wanted to be that involved with it. It was only when Sky came along that they decided to do anything to glam it up a bit, but its still snake hiss poor in comparison.

What Sky do is totally commit to something when they take it on board. They would do snooker very well if they took it on, but it would not be taken on with the Beeb covering what they cover currently. In a way I am glad that Sky dont do proper snooker as if they did take on snooker there might be an interference factor which is why I detest the PL - it just is not snooker.

So with them not doing rankers then rankers can HOPEFULLY stay as they are, without shot clock or any other interference. <ok>

Re: Why is Sky Sports so apathetic towards Snooker?

Postby Wildey

Yea Sky has been Brilliant for Sports in this country even Snooker lets not forget they were the First to use the red Button Function in their Snooker Coverage then the BBC Followed Suite.

Re: Why is Sky Sports so apathetic towards Snooker?

Postby PLtheRef

That Sky's been beneficial for sport in general is in no doubt. Its comprehensive coverage of football, cricket, tennis, and more. I remember watching the 2003 British Open when we'd not had SKY for long and being impressed by that you could pick the choice of matches. This was when most ranking competitions minus the Chinese ones had the nine day format. The expansion of the Premier League from one hour slots over the course of a few months to live coverage is a bonus but it also gives the impression that SKY have nailed themselves to a shot clock format. Which is becoming prevalent in all of their cue sports coverage.

But it almost seems to have a determination to be the be all and end all of all sports broadcasting within the country. In that it needs to have arguably the most popular of a sports events or they don't take too deep an interest. - Would it follow PDC Darts so much if it didn't broadcast the World Championships for example. If the Mosconi Cup switched to another channel then Nine-ball might disappear completely off of the channels.

Re: Why is Sky Sports so apathetic towards Snooker?

Postby Roland

The problem with Sky and snooker is that there's a guy called Barney Francis at the top of Sky Sports, and he is a complete runt. That's the only reason Sky Sports isn't interested in proper snooker and only broadcasts the dumbed down version of the game.

Re: Why is Sky Sports so apathetic towards Snooker?

Postby Roland

Head of Sky Sports and he says snooker isn't for his audience because it's too slow and behind the times and people want faster action hence all the shitclocks in the Sky snooker events.

The Premier League makes them a lot of money with sales abroad so they can't ditch snooker, but when you've got an idiot bucking cretin like that in charge who thinks his audience doesn't have an attention span and that because he doesn't like snooker then no one should be able to watch it under his watch, then it makes a return of proper championship snooker to Sky seem like a distant dream.

Re: Why is Sky Sports so apathetic towards Snooker?

Postby kolompar

my opinion:
    I dont really care because I dont have Sky
    I dont understand why its a problem they dont have snooker
    They still have some tournaments and I like them. their snooker coverage is always good the camera angle to the table is always good, and they always show all the matches, they show one match after other, not like the German masters for example when there is 5 match at the same time with only 1 televised.. so dont call these donkey doo :-D
    I think it will change with Barry Hearn, Sky shows many matchroom events, and the PDC tournaments

Re: Why is Sky Sports so apathetic towards Snooker?

Postby Wildey

kolompar wrote:my opinion:
    I dont really care because I dont have Sky
    I dont understand why its a problem they dont have snooker
    They still have some tournaments and I like them. their snooker coverage is always good the camera angle to the table is always good, and they always show all the matches, they show one match after other, not like the German masters for example when there is 5 match at the same time with only 1 televised.. so dont call these donkey doo :-D
    I think it will change with Barry Hearn, Sky shows many matchroom events, and the PDC tournaments

for someone who dont really care and dont have sky you dont half know a lot about what goes on there.

Re: Why is Sky Sports so apathetic towards Snooker?

Postby Wildey

i did post this in coments

Bloody hell to Start with it was 2010 that Nathan Robertson won the World Championship and ohhhhh yes his name is Neil not Nathan you bunch of bucking hammers

Re: Why is Sky Sports so apathetic towards Snooker?

Postby SnookerFan

Living Snooker wrote:Sky are not that bothered about snooker. Or at least they won't be until they can get their hands on the Worlds. It's even evident on their website that snooker is not that important to them, as this from a few weeks ago will testify http://www1.skysports.com/snooker/news/ ... ith-a-bang
Reigning world champion Nathan Robertson?



<doh>

Re: Why is Sky Sports so apathetic towards Snooker?

Postby Cannonball

What we need, is another terrestrial channel to be interested in snooker tournaments, if the beeb won't carry more. C4 would be in my thoughts, they're quite progressive. They don't expect huge audience figures. They took on cycling when it wasn't at all fashionable and did a grand job. They did the same with Serie A back in the 90s, and I think they had a crack at cricket. Their coverage of racing is very good I believe. They could buy the live feed from broadcasters at foreign tournaments, and have a couple of commentators in a studio; pretty cheap tv. The same could be done on ITV 3/4. Sky is elitist; we don't need that in snooker, we need to broaden its appeal to the mass public.

Re: Why is Sky Sports so apathetic towards Snooker?

Postby SnookerFan

Trumpster wrote:What we need, is another terrestrial channel to be interested in snooker tournaments, if the beeb won't carry more. C4 would be in my thoughts, they're quite progressive. They don't expect huge audience figures. They took on cycling when it wasn't at all fashionable and did a grand job. They did the same with Serie A back in the 90s, and I think they had a crack at cricket. Their coverage of racing is very good I believe. They could buy the live feed from broadcasters at foreign tournaments, and have a couple of commentators in a studio; pretty cheap tv. The same could be done on ITV 3/4. Sky is elitist; we don't need that in snooker, we need to broaden its appeal to the mass public.


It does seem odd to me that some fans suggest Sky Sports as the way forward in snooker coverage. I've heard people lament that the World Championship isn't on Sky, as if to suggest that Sky Sports is guaranteed good coverage. It's quite obvious to me Sky Sports isn't that interested in non-shot-clock, so it's perfectly possible their coverage wouldn't be that good. And you're also putting a sport that's working to increase it's fan-base on a channel that not everybody has.

Obviously we don't have any guarantees of the coverage being quality on any channels that the sport doesn't usually do coverage. Or that the channel itself would commit. But at least the suggestion of ITV has a channel that everybody has. And has the additional bonus of ITV 2, 3 or 4 that they could devote to the live games when something deemed more important is on ITV 1.


   

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