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We're Down to Just 2 Tournaments!

Postby Cannonball

I had not realised there would be no snooker tournaments for three months between the Masters and the Worlds, so I am grateful to the BBC for providing me with this information via its exhaustive list of not-to-miss sporting events -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/30503789

Still, there is the Skeleton World Championships on 28th March in Winterberg Germany to look forward to as well as the Short track skating - European Championships, Dordrecht, Netherlands from 23rd January and don't forget Wheelchair Curling - World Championships from 7th March in Finland to keep us all going. Personally, I don't think it's nice to throw people on wheelchairs down a rink and this shouldn't be televised for moral reasons.

It also looks like the UK, Welsh Open, China Open, Wuxi, Shanghai Masters, International, Champion of Champions etc have been cancelled. Bazza, you're not doing a good job if we're just down to two tournaments a year mate!

Thankyou BBC.

Re: We're Down to Just 2 Tournaments!

Postby gcjdavid

I still do not know why the BBC, with its better commentators (my personal opinion, really) not broadcast other tournaments like Eurosport does?

Re: We're Down to Just 2 Tournaments!

Postby shankly

gcjdavid wrote:I still do not know why the BBC, with its better commentators (my personal opinion, really) not broadcast other tournaments like Eurosport does?


Lol, they can't even show enough of the three tournaments they do cover, much less the others.

Anyway, it's because

1) It's not a dedicated sports channel
2) Snooker is not as popular as we like to think it is
3) Some bright spark doing the programming thinks people prefer watching reruns of Escape to the Country instead of live snooker

To be honest I think the mix of coverage is pretty good at the moment -- Eurosport for the diehards, BBC for the Triple Crown, ITV for the other UK tournaments. BBC's just doing a snake hiss poor job of the tournaments they do cover. If they could just devote a couple of hours of evening air time and cover EVERYTHING else on red button it'd be perfect.

Re: We're Down to Just 2 Tournaments!

Postby SnookerFan

shankly wrote:
Lol, they can't even show enough of the three tournaments they do cover, much less the others.

Anyway, it's because

1) It's not a dedicated sports channel
2) Snooker is not as popular as we like to think it is
3) Some bright spark doing the programming thinks people prefer watching reruns of Escape to the Country instead of live snooker

To be honest I think the mix of coverage is pretty good at the moment -- Eurosport for the diehards, BBC for the Triple Crown, ITV for the other UK tournaments. BBC's just doing a snake hiss poor job of the tournaments they do cover. If they could just devote a couple of hours of evening air time and cover EVERYTHING else on red button it'd be perfect.



The BBC is bringing snooker to terrestrial television, so you can't moan of that front. Can't really moan that snooker is on free-to-view telly.

On saying that, it's obvious it only really cares about snooker other than as a daytime schedule filler. There's no evening matches during the week on the BBC next week. They've already reduced their Red Button coverage. And their expert pundits don't even try to hide the fact that they don't know much about snooker. ITV might not be as professional a looking product as BBC, but their commentators show superior knowledge to their BBC counterparts.

But, as I say. Probably rather that than have it on Sky Sports, because then I'd have to pay for it.

Re: We're Down to Just 2 Tournaments!

Postby Andre147

SnookerFan wrote:
shankly wrote:
Lol, they can't even show enough of the three tournaments they do cover, much less the others.

Anyway, it's because

1) It's not a dedicated sports channel
2) Snooker is not as popular as we like to think it is
3) Some bright spark doing the programming thinks people prefer watching reruns of Escape to the Country instead of live snooker

To be honest I think the mix of coverage is pretty good at the moment -- Eurosport for the diehards, BBC for the Triple Crown, ITV for the other UK tournaments. BBC's just doing a snake hiss poor job of the tournaments they do cover. If they could just devote a couple of hours of evening air time and cover EVERYTHING else on red button it'd be perfect.



The BBC is bringing snooker to terrestrial television, so you can't moan of that front. Can't really moan that snooker is on free-to-view telly.

On saying that, it's obvious it only really cares about snooker other than as a daytime schedule filler. There's no evening matches during the week on the BBC next week. They've already reduced their Red Button coverage. And their expert pundits don't even try to hide the fact that they don't know much about snooker. ITV might not be as professional a looking product as BBC, but their commentators show superior knowledge to their BBC counterparts.

But, as I say. Probably rather that than have it on Sky Sports, because then I'd have to pay for it.


Fair assessment from you and shankly, agree with everything you said. I for one not from the UK so it dpesn't bother me that much how much coverage the BBC offers as I mostly watch it on ES, but I often tune in to BBC to watch some of their features (if they're not too cringeworthy that is) because as of now BBC is by far the one which still offers the most interesting ones. ITV is expert on commentary and frame analysis and I love to watch Snooker on ITV also when it's on, but as I said I obviously use ES to watch most of the matches because here we also have some good national commentators. It all depends on the day really, I too sometimes tune in to British ES as sometimes British shedulle is diferent from the International one, and obviously ITV and Sky Sports have their own exclusive tournaments that ES doesn't cover so I tune in to watch them when they're on.

Of course it's way better to have Snooker still on terrestrial TV in the UK as you said SF, unfortunately for you it's "only" the BIg 3 tournaments of the season, plus their coverage could be much better on evening sessions and on red button. Ah well, we can't complain or moan too much about it, I know full well that in the 80s and early 90s the coverage wasn't even half of what it is today so....