BBC Snooker

The BBC and British Eurosport have both been covering the Grand Prix Snooker this week.

Firstly I think I should register my disappointment at the lack of choice on the BBC's interactive coverage. On many occasions they were only offering 1 of the 2 televised tables on BBCi.

I personally prefer the British Eurosport commentators: Mike Smith, Matthew Syed, Mike Hallett, Neal Foulds and Dominic Dale to the BBC's offering, but the down side to that is British Eurosport only broadcast in 4:3, and still has no studio presentation.

As for the BBC, I think John Virgo would have been pensioned off years ago if it wasn't for Big Break. His commentaries are nothing short of attrotious. I am also irritated by Dennis Taylor, and I think I could retire if I was given a pound every time he used the phrase 'nice little cannon'.

I find it a great pity that some of the best commentators in the business are not currently employed by anyone, such as Phil Yates (ex Sky, ITV), Ray Edmunds (ex ITV, BBC), Mark Wildman (ex ITV, Sky, British Eurosport) and Jim Meadowcroft (ex ITV, BBC) whilst the likes of Virgo remain in the job.

It is also unfortunate that all of the tournaments, many of them very old, that used to be covered by Sky are no longer played, with the British Open being the last to fall, it will be a significant absence from the calendar.

Only the BBC 4 tournaments will take place this year, and the BBC contract is up for renewal soon.

Something has gone badly wrong. TV audiences are healthy and the independently run Snooker Premier League is booming. I cannot understand why there is a lack of sponsors, lack of tournaments and a complete loss of interest in tournament snooker by Sky and maybe even ITV. Unless something changes fast snooker will die.

There should be more Snooker on TV full stop - I was pleasantly surprised to see that they are bringing back Pot Black in two weeks time!

Yes but in a very truncated form.

With the current state of professional Snooker in the UK you can see why the likes of O'Sullivan, White and possibly Hendry are looking to the lucrative US Pool tour.

We can but hope!

I guess the chance of snooker disapearing from our screens is relatively small though, as it somehow gets pretty decent ratings I think the BBC will want to hold on to it, and I can't see any terrestrial broadcaster wanting to take it off them, or Sky to be honest!


Snooker does itself no favours in the structure of tournaments, with games seeming to go on for days and days and days and days. It's hardly the quickest sport in the world, so why drag it out. There is no reason why matches couldn't be restricted to one session, with at most best of nine!

And as you write "BBC 4 tournaments", I think snooker would fit quite nicely into the BBC Four evening schedule, and though not strictly within it's remit, I'd imagine the target audience is very similar and BBC 4 programmes following on from the snooker could benefit as a result!

Neal Foulds could be heard commentating on the BBC either last year or the year before.



John Virgo is quite clearly one of the most critical commentators I've ever heard, always keen to state "that was just careless" every five minutes and making out that he'd have done better. Ironic really from a man who used to take anything up to 20 goes at a trick shot on Big Break.

John Parrott commentated at one time; I would be quite happy to pay £180 a year in TV Licence fee as long as he doesn't commentate on a match ever again.



I dare say if there was more snooker to feature on the TV, either by way of BBC One/Two or BBCi, then they'd have to find some more people who know what they're talking about. I'm surprised Ray Reardon hasn't moved into commentary, though he's clearly too busy coaching Ronnie at the moment.



IIRC a major sponsor for a tobacco company has been forced to pull out due to new legislation, which cannot be good.

ITV did cover snooker at one point a few of years back, dumping it in a 2pm slot as edited highlights and doing nothing really exciting with it. I dare say World of Sport covered it as well.

I have very vague memories of ITV showing snooker with Matt Smith presenting and Peter Drury commentating. I recall them showing a 'Nations Cup' type snooker tournament with all the Home Nations competing.

Yeah, you're almost right, ITV covered snooker a few years ago- the Nations Cup, as you describe, and the Champions Cup, held just before the start of the season in August.

Russ Williams of Virgin Radio was the presenter, NOT Matt Smith. Steve Davis was the regular studio analyst.Commentators were: Phil Yates, Peter Drury, Willie Thorne , Terry Griffiths and Mark King.

Live coverage in the evenings was shown on the ITv Sport Channel. ITV then began cutting the length of the daytime coverage and eventually dropped the evening highlights altogether, just before dropping the sport completely.

ITV also covered the Liverpool Victoria Charity Challenge consistently throughout the 1990s during periods when they had no other snooker with coverage levels depending on which region you lived, with Central showing the most and other regions opting in and out of coverage as the afternoon progressed. eamonn Holmes presented with commentators including Dennis Taylor, Wille Thorne and Phil Yates.

If I remember correctly Clive Everton began his TV commentator career on ITV many many years ago.

In an interview with the Head of BBC Sport on MediaGuardian today they report that rights for the World Snooker Championships have just been renewed, but don't give any details - or say if it includes the other tournaments.