Snooker will return to ITV for the first time in nine years with a new event to be announced today.
I will post details of Power Snooker after the official launch - happening right now and attended by Ronnie O’Sullivan and Barry Hearn.
ITV’s last involvement in snooker ended in 2001 with the third and final staging of the Champions Cup. They also screened the Nations Cup in this period.
Prior to this the ITV network broadcast four tournaments a season during the boom years of the 1980s: the International, World Doubles (later the World Matchplay), Mercantile Classic and British Open.
These latter two tournaments had best of 25 frame finals played over Saturday afternoon and evening and Sunday afternoon.
The climaxes to these finals frequently drew high audiences, several of which were in excess of ten million.
Then two things happened which heralded the beginning of the end of snooker on ITV.
They used to share coverage with Channel 4 but when Michael Grade arrived as chief executive of C4 in 1987 he declared he wanted ‘a channel for people who don’t like snooker.’
In attempting to make the channel unique, this was perfectly fair enough but it meant ITV had to try and find the hours to properly show their events, not easy in the days before digital with so many other programmes competing for space.
Then in 1988 ITV won the rights to show a live first division football match every Sunday afternoon, eating up the slot traditionally taken by snooker.
ITV gradually scaled down to three tournaments, then two and then finally none at all.
The broadcasting landscape has changed, though. ITV now has four channels with ITV4 showing several hours of sport, particularly PDC darts – also headed by Hearn, football, boxing, tennis, motor sport and, currently, the Tour de France.
ITV4 will show eight hours live coverage of the new event, which will be held over a single day.
As I say, I will post details after it has been officially launched. I suspect it will attract a fair amount of comment as it involves changes to the standard rules.
The good news, though, is that ITV are back on board which must be a good sign going forward, particularly as Sky Sports are dipping their toes into the water with World Snooker once again after seven years with their new Shootout.
15 comments:
Any chance to get coverage of the new event in europe, esp. Germany?
Dave, what is the point of embargo holding when others break it?
It makes "announcements like yours / WS today have less punch.
Ive known of it before yesterday, but it was already in the public domain then....
its a shame these people get given the time of day by anyone in snooker
ITV also had the Charity Challenge for a while, which was their last remaining tournament I think.
It will be one in the eye for Michael Grade - he tried to kill Doctor Who and then tried to kill snooker! I bet Joe Johnson wishes he had killed He-Man.
Sorry re-read your blog perhaps that was what the Champions Cup was?
As much as it is good news it seems to me that so far Sky and ITV want bastardised versions of snooker.
I am not vehemently against this but hopefully it will lead to more serious snooker too. Come 2012 everyone who has a tv will have ITV 4, so eight hours a day is impressive. Last time ITV dipped their toe in the coverage was abysmal.
Also if the beeb are not keen on having a fourth event on BBC 2 then could it not be salvaged as a red button event or alternatively on BBC 3?
Hi Dave,
Yes, it was only a matter of time before ITV4 got their hands on snooker,with Hearn's Darts already on-screen.
Some will be horrified by what Ronnie has said,especially about the World Championship, but you know, it is true, if only for the sports sake.
When he made the comments about someone like Simon Cowell coming in to take the sport over to rebrand it at the Masters in 09, a lot was made of it. Well now it is being rebranded.
Power Snooker is a great idea and if the sport doesn't go forward with crowd interaction, kids will not want to pick up a cue.
Hopefully this tournament will change folks opinions on what they think about snooker.
Yes, Ronnie. This isn't 17 days - it's 30 minute snooker! Now let us get on with it...
Thanks, Joe
At work, so will post more comments about power snooker after your write up. But just quickly wanted to say; this is superb news. The more televisual outlets snooker has, the better. Eurosport, Sky Sports, BBC and now ITV.
Good news.
Just sounds like a fun tournament to me. And I like the mix of players invited, especially Luca Brecel.
Rich - they did show the Charity Challenge but this was before the Nations Cup/Champions Cup.
Niall Sloane intimated today that they were testing the water and that suggests they could come back into snooker in a more significant way.
David- I believe 1999 was a year of overlap when ITV showed the Charity Challenge, Nations Cup and Champions Cup.
I thought it was a bit weird at the time because they had the Nations Cup presented by Russ Williams, with commentary from Phil Yates, peter Drury, Willie Thorne and Terry Griffiths.
The following month they showed the Charity Challenge, which had a completely different presentation team, graphics etc, which were the same people who had worked on the Charity Challenge for the previous number of years. It consisted of (from memory): Eamonn Holmes, Sally Meen, Dennis Taylor, Phil Yates and Willie Thorne.
I remember being a bit frustrated by ITV's coverage of the Charity Challenge when I was a kid in the 90s. Certain regions seemed to have far more coverage than others, with Central being the most extensive.
I remember Eamonn used to welcome viewers from the different regions as the programme went on. Here in HTV land (who didn't show as much sport in general as other regions), we'd usually join later than Central.
so dave, are those that broke the embargo going to be excluded from events etc.. ?
ITV coverage of Snooker through most of the 1980s was fully committed & was always featured in primetime slots & was a overall success - BBC & ITV shared the spoils equally in this period.
Their coverage had slowly decreased until losing the rankers
in 1992.
Their coverage in the late 1990's,
with the Victoria Challenge,
Nations Cup,was half-hearted,
consisting mostly of highlights,
very little promotion for them &
not helped by the BBC having the
major prestige events instead.
Now,I have no problem with ITV4 staging Snooker - As digital is becoming available in more households at an increasing rate.
I doubt if ITV will get as committed to Snooker as in the
golden era of the 80s - but must
surely do better than their
lukewarm connection in the late 90s
I am optimistic nonetheless that
Power Snooker is a beginning of
better things to come.
anyone else know the answer?
GREAT THAT SNOOKER WILL BE BACK ON ITV. I WISH TO POINT OUT THAT I THINK THAT THERE IS FAR FROM ANYTHING WRONG WITH THE BBC COVERAGE, BUT, HAVING BEEN ABSENT FROM ITV FOR SO LONG, IT WILL BE GREAT TO HAVE IT BACK THERE ALSO.
AS A GREAT FAN OF SNOOKER, I AM IN SUPPORT OF ANY COVERAGE, REGARDLESS OF THE CHANNEL WHICH PROVIDES IT.
I WOULD LOVE IT IF SNOOKER APPEARED ON EVERY SINGLE TV CHANNEL. BBC AND ITV COVERAGE IS SUPERB, AS IS THE SKY SPORTS COVERAGE, NOT TO FORGET THE CHANNEL FOR WHICH DAVID HENDON AND MY GREAT MATE, JOE JOHNSON, ARE COMMENTATORS, EUROSPORT.
I CAN NOT WAIT TO HEAR MORE ON THIS STORY, WHEN THE TIME COMES.
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