18.4.08

ALL EYES ON THE CRUCIBLE

Soon the talking will, thank goodness, be over and we can actually get on with the 888.com World Championship.

The build up in the newspapers this year has been low key to say the least.

This may reflect a decline in interest from the British media in general but I expect coverage to pick up once the tournament begins. It tends to be that all the people and publications that ignore snooker throughout the season suddenly decide it’s worth covering after all.

Let’s hope it’s covered properly.

The BBC website has a large section on the event. It’s a shame, then, that they have the draw in the wrong order and Ali Carter and Barry Hawkins playing three sessions in their first round match (do they know something we don’t?).

The BBC also has an extremely late nightly highlights programme (midnight most nights and contrary to their own listings) during the first week having come off air at 8pm with the evening session just getting interesting.

They are showing it all live on their interactive service but this doesn’t include a presenter or interviews with players.

Eurosport will be showing pretty much every session live and there is a full coverage on their website.

However you are following the tournament – at the Crucible, on TV or via live scoring – I hope you enjoy it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

pity the bbc cant get it right- they use to have a good eye for detail and the highlights programmes was always a lot earlier. Well done eurosport for excellent blanket coverage. I am one of the luckyish ones who will be at some matches at the crucible. I will miss the final day this year though due to a lack of tickets. Seems a shame the genuine fans miss out and tickets have been sold to those who are after making a profit on ebay. I contacted world snooker about this but they have not had the courtesy to reply. John H

Anonymous said...

the bbc coverage both on their website and their tv presentation is sadly lacking in any sort of spark.
Worse for the game, the bbc presentation is the image through which most uk viewers perceive the game.
With the exception of newer commentators like Neal Foulds, the same old voices are trundled out time after time - most of them are yesterday's men and sadly out of touch with today's modern snooker.
It sums it all up when Willie Thorne will, inevitably, describe Steve Davis as "this young man"
It's time for a major shake up. World Snooker depend to much too great a degree on the bbc contract and bbc aren't doing the sport any favours at all.

Anonymous said...

bbc also dictates start times creating the late finals of the last two years and keeping crucible crowds and players waiting for up to ten minutes sometimes to enable live introductions. When most of the time it must be watched on interactive for live coverage anyway why change for the final when it is not in the best interests of the sport to start so late. I cant imagine the lta making such compromises at wimbledon or the FA at Wembley. Television should return to being observers of sport and not dictators. Having said that Commentaters such as Clive, Steve, Neal and Terry do a wonderful job and enhance the enjoyment of viewing the game- although sometimes the pictures could be left to speak for themselves a little more.

Anonymous said...

Hahaha, Ali Carter and Barry Hawkins WILL play a third session. So that was well predicted by the BBC... ;-)

cheers,
Eric

Anonymous said...

Hahaha, Ali Carter and Barry Hawkins WILL play a third session. So that was well predicted by the BBC... ;-)

cheers,
Eric

7:58 PM

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hahahaha
They did know something we didn't know.