In the intervening 20 years ITV has shown various invitation tournaments and, more recently, Power Snooker. But by broadcasting a full ranking event they are making a much greater commitment.
The World Open, which will still be broadcast by Eurosport, starts on February 25. ITV's commentary team comprises Clive Everton, Neal Foulds and Peter Drury.
ITV broadcast many hours of snooker during the boom years of the 1980s and achieved huge ratings but they eventually ran into serious scheduling problems. Their portfolio gradually shrunk from four tournaments to two and then none at all.
But ITV4 already screens a range of sport, from football to cricket, tennis and darts. Snooker is a welcome addition to the line-up.
ITV4 is a free to air channel available on all platforms so the tournament, which is held in Haikou, China, will reach a large potential audience in the UK.
It would be safe to assume that, if all goes well, ITV will look to show even more snooker in the future.
35 comments:
Great news and even better that the commentary team will include the great Clive Everton (BBC's loss is very much ITV's gain), complimented by Neal Foulds who in my opinion has also become a very accomplished commentator.
Let's really hope the tournament is a success.
Fantastic news. Been banging on about this for ages and final proof that snooker hold its own and is in fact more popular on TV than tennis and golf (much of the time). Eventually dimwit channel controllers have to accept the truth!
First of many I hope. It's about time!
So this event is being moved out of China.where is it being held ?
Sorry it said broadcast in the uk,i picked that up wrong by the looks of it.
Clive back where he belongs! This is wonderful to hear.
Wow - it looks like something good has come from Power Snooker (which actually got pretty reasonable ratings for ITV4).
Just hope that the tournament is a bit better organised (lots of empty seats last year, even for the final)
Great choice on commentators by ITV, with this and his work for Sky and the World Snooker live feed Clive must be busier than ever?
Tony C @12.12 more or less said what I was going to say. Hope this leads to an ITV revival. Might make the BEEB think twice about their winding down of coverage.
About time too!
Masterstroke by itv4 to have the great Clive Everton on board.Why the BBC got rid of him i will never know,best and most knowledgeable commentator ever in my opinion.
fantastic news this is..is there any other news on power snooker..will definitally tune in to this..love clive everton commentating in saying that joe johnson is great on eurosport and so is mike hallet and the rest of the team..
good to hear...and also good the NF is commenting as I don't rate the other two
What a great Commentary team in Clive and Neal.
This is good news
Great to see Clive back in the commentary booth – where he belongs and not where the likes of Ken Doherty belongs.
Now we need David Rhys-Jones back in the bowls commentary box on the Beeb.
you say "if all goes well, ITV will look to show even more snooker in the future."
But Live coverage will be over before Kids come home from school or most from Work lets hope viewing figures will be good for a Day time Audience.
otherwise they might use that as a excuse not to continue with snooker "at least we tried" scenario.
3.35 pm
ITV4 has shown the African Nations Cup and IPL Cricket in the afternoon so Snooker coverage would fit. I'm not sure why it's the World Open they are taking and not the China Open but either way it's good news.
Good to see Clive and Neal lined up for commentary on ITV. Shame Phil Yates isnt joining them as I think he's excellent, incredibly knowledgeable and works well with Neal Foulds on the packaged World Snooker distributed shows
I hope Ronnie stays away
coverage and attendencies / ticket sales have generally been fantastic without him.....
gives others a share of the spotlight..and for the right reasons. not blowjbgate or other nonsense
I would imagine ITV4's ratings are normally so low during the daytime, that IF they promote the snooker, it should represent an improvement.
They need to be more like the BBC to differentiate themselves from Eurosport, i.e. have a studio, a host, and have the sound synced to the pictures (ha ha:)
But don't get me wrong - I am grateful for Eurosports coverage.
Bit of ITV snooker nostalgia for you.
ITV used to have a popular presenter - a household name.
ITV would show highlights quite late, say 11:15 pm, and you could usually guess the result by the length of the programme.
These programmes were live - commentary only being done at the time of broadcast, unlike BBC today when it is done at the time of play.
Anyway one night, this household name nodded off during the live programme. The frame ended and it went back to the studio. I guess the producer must have screamed in his ear because the poor guy jumped out of his skin !!!
I wonder (but doubt) if a tape exists.
Fantastic to see ITV cover a ranking event again and very shrewd to see them snap up Clive Everton to help cover the event.
This is without doubt the BBC's loss, and they seem to think that if you are a former world champion, you automatically have the skill set to be a great commentator, which is a very naive thought set.
That said there are exceptions in my opinion with Steve Davis and John Parrott, who are very informative and the former UK champion, John Virgo.
Re commentators the best are Clive Everton by a country mile followed by Yates,Virgo,Thorne,Worst ever has to be Dennis Taylor he is so repetetive its unreal.Best ever achor man David Vine,there will never be anyone close to him.
730, basher .. Why bring him up when this article had nothing to do with him? Your criticism on ros-lovers reversed. Expect not to hear from you ever again. Thank you.
Smart move snapping up Clive and Foulds, the best two commentators around for my money. Another shrewd move would be hiring Dougie Donnelly to anchor the programme. The biggest mistake the BBC made after firing Clive was firing Dougie. It would really stick the knife in if ITV did a better presenting job with sacked BBC alumni.
A bit surprised to see Neal in there though, won't the BBC see this as a "betrayal", or has he been sacked too?
Clive has arguably the greatest snooker brain of them all, whether it's commentating, journalism, snooker politics etc etc.
Commentating wise, Steve Davis is one of the very best on the few occasions he actually does commentate as he's mainly a studio analyst. Parrott is right up there too, as well as Virgo. Foulds also gives great insight as well as yourself David and Phil Yates informing us with great stats too.
Of the worst for the BBC, Doherty, Hendry and Taylor are awfull as well as for Eurosport, Joe Johnson talks to much in giving a running commentary and Mike Hallett for the most states the most blatantly obvious beyond belief.
Anchormen - agree David Vine was as good as anyone and Hazel Irvine does a decent job. Anyone remember from around 20 years ago, Nick Owen from GMTV doing a stint for snooker. As bad as it gets is an understatement.
Clive Everton on White having just knocked in a sublime clearance v's Higgins in the Coral UK '85....
'He's played every shot in the book, and a few which aren't'.
Contrasted with classic from Ted Lowe on Fred Davis' dilemma when faced with a shot requiring a bit of a stretch...
'Old Fred, sixty odd years old. Not quite able to get his leg over these days. Instead he uses his left hand'.
You couldn't make it up !!
Tony Francis as I remember was a very competent front man for a time. Also wrote a book about Alex Higgins which was enjoyable.
Snooker highlight on ITV has to be White's 11th hour victory over Thorburn in the '86 Mercantile Credit Classic having needed a snooker with just pink and black left.
Happy days !!
Memories fade over time.
ITV's coverage of snooker in the 80s & 90s was at best okay in the afternoon and poor in the evening. It also varied from region to region.
But back then they only had a single channel. Now they have four, all controlled (in England) by one company.
And matches from China are usually done by 5pm.
@714 It seems to me no-one wants to broadcast snooker in the evenings, so covering a Chinese tournament gives them a very convenient excuse to limit it to highlights and an afternoon match. Still, the final will finish on a Sunday afternoon, which will actually suit many Brits and Europeans who don't want to stay up until 2am.
Re comment at 5.51 about Nick Owen.
He did it for two seasons, but in the second of those he was also presenting a mid-morning show on with Anne Diamond on BBC 1.
Rather than pack in the snooker though, he still did all the evening programmes and the weekends.
Which left ITV needing someone else to anchor the afternoons, and although even he has probably forgotten it by now, the man they went for was Dennis Taylor!
He did all the weekday afternoons at the World Matchplay in December, then the same again at the British Open in the spring, which was their only other tournament that season, and indeed their last before they pulled out that summer.
6.45pm - to be fair to Ted Lowe though he also can out with this classic commentary:
"Jimmy is making these balls talk this evening, and WHAT a story they're telling".
Brilliant.
Useless to people who are working in the UK who are unable to watch Chinese tournaments. Five ranking tournaments there is a farce.
To 1.51 pm, who thinks five ranking tournaments in China is a "farce".
Why?
If there were only, say, three tournaments there, in what possible way would that be better?
Please enlighten me.
Hi David. Great news that Clive Everton will be part of ITV4'S commentary team.
Where's the audience seems a shame there's hardly anyone there!
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