24.11.10

A RIGHT ROYAL PROBLEM

World Snooker and the BBC will have to decide whether to alter the schedule for the Betfred.com World Championship following the news that the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton will be on April 29.

This falls on the afternoon of the second day of the Crucible semi-finals. The government have designated the day a public holiday.

As the wedding of the future monarch is a huge national event, it is unlikely the BBC will be broadcasting live coverage of anything else at the same time.

The easiest solution would be to play three sessions on the Thursday and have the semi-final rest session on the Friday afternoon.

Of course, a great many people couldn't care less about the royal wedding and won't understand why there needs to be any change at all.

It's better to decide one way or the other now, though, particularly as people have already started buying tickets.

23 comments:

TazMania said...

That means it was a mistake to sell the tickets to early. Especially as we still dont know who is going to play. With players having a possibility of going out the top 16.

Anonymous said...

Could they go back to having the championships start on Friday Evening just for this year, allowing all the sessions to be moved back?

Anonymous said...

11.25

I don’t think it was a mistake to sell the tickets too early. How could they have possibly known that there was to be a Royal Wedding on that day.
Also we won’t know the full Crucible line up until after Welsh Open which is too late to sell the tickets. Other sports don’t have guaranteed draws so i don’t see why snooker should be different.

Anonymous said...

anon at 11:33am - don't be ridiculous

Anonymous said...

Would they be able to get the re-rig done in time to have a morning session on the Thursday though? They usually start as soon as play finishes on Wednesday, then work through the night, and still they generally finish without much time to spare.

My guess is that they'll go ahead as planned, and BBC will just show brief highlights of the Friday afternoon session, in the usual early evening highlights programme.

In 1997 the first day of the semi finals clashed with the General Election, which was being covered across both BBC1 and BBC2, so that night's snooker coverage didn't begin until 1.30am.

Dave H said...

They got the re-rig done in plenty of time for the Taylor/Davis exhibition this year

Anonymous said...

As a semi-final ticket-holder on 29th, I hope it all goes ahead as planned. If people want to watch the Royal Wedding, they can always return the tickets for resale.

Janie Watkins said...

Presumably the coverage would still be on the red button and on Eurosport?

Anonymous said...

yes janie is spot on who wants to listen to Steve Davis talking rubbish like he was at the World Open.

Red button is the way to go and cut the pay of BBC Snooker presenters.

Anonymous said...

I'd be surprised if they moved it. Re-ticketing would be administratively awkward and I assume the Beeb would have it on the red-button anyway.

As an aside - Janie I don't know if you are still doing anything for Global in your new role, (I assume not, given its performance) but it's a shame that a once indispensable site has degraded to a state where they cannot even be bothered to update end of play scores, let alone in running changes. A shame.

John

Betty Logan said...

They're not showing the wedding on both channels are they?

Anonymous said...

it will be on ITV anyway don't see the need for the BBC To get involved wasting license payers money showing something someone else is...

id be demanding my money back if that's the case.

Anonymous said...

Can Hearn not get them to change the date of the wedding?

Anonymous said...

If snooker takes a back seat to the royal family then this is surely a welcome chance to reevaluate the importance of monarchy.

Rule number one: snooker trumps royal weddings.

Rule number two: snooker may not trump nuclear war but this is to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

That's it! Barry, go do your thing.

Anonymous said...

The Taylor/Davis exhibition didn't start until 12.00 though.

Kingsnorth said...

The least they can do is give Barry Hearn an invite to the wedding to compensate for the reschedueling.

Bazza can see someone else get the I'm so important redcarpet treatment.

Anonymous said...

My guess is that the Royals are protesting about the sheer length of the Crucible Semis.

Anonymous said...

By the way, how many brits have access to Eurosport? With the rest of Europe relying pretty much on Eurosport alone when it comes to snooker I believe it should be possible for most people to watch it without the assistance of the Buckingham Broadcasting Corporation. Is Eurosport inaccessible to most UK residents?

Betty Logan said...

You need satellite or cable and most people rely on TV aerials. However, I don't think the BBC is a problem as such. If the snooker goes ahead they will probably still stream it, and there is nothing to prevent them from showing it on the second channel as they usually do, since the wedding (if it goes ahead) will be on the main BBC channel.

Anonymous said...

It's plain obvious they should move the wedding to Sheffield and Willie Thorne be the vicar.

Anonymous said...

Damn,I was so looking forward to John Higgins and the sequel assignment.

Needn't bother now.

Colin M said...

Only an embassy siege warrants the Beeb stopping snooker coverage!!

moveoverrover said...

Yeah, the Iranian embassy siege was a right bummer that year. The boys from the SAS (shit at snooker) really spoiled it for the rest of us.