Chess on TV

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Jon Mahony
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Re: Chess on TV

Post by Jon Mahony » Wed Nov 11, 2015 12:30 pm

LawrenceCooper wrote:
Matt Mackenzie wrote:First I had heard of that - can you provide a link? :(
From a Google search: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/o ... s-obituary
RIP Jeremy, I did a Google search on him recently to see if he was still alive and it didn’t come up with much - He looked to be approaching 60 in the Master Game, but was obviously much younger, I’d expected him to be long gone.

Sadly there are only 2 MG DVD’s to break out, with no sign of anymore in the pipeline they obviously didn’t sell well enough :(

Of course Bill Hartston is still on TV now, in the surprisingly amusing Gogglebox, with his friend the world Cluedo champion (or was it Scrabble?) They seem to be getting phased out now though, only showing up once every 3 episodes or so.
"When you see a good move, look for a better one!" - Lasker

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Chess on TV

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Wed Nov 11, 2015 12:50 pm

From the obituary, mention of the "World Chess Report", which from looking around appears to have been a 1980s BBC2 chess reporting segment. Does anyone here have any memories to share of those?

http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b78cc41c2
http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/b5e3e73edb2f ... e49311ad6a

Some interesting footage with Getty of the 1984 and 1986 World Chess Championship match:

http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/videos/wor ... ampionship

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Chess on TV

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Nov 11, 2015 1:24 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: appears to have been a 1980s BBC2 chess reporting segment. Does anyone here have any memories to share of those?
From 1972 until 1993 (or was it later?), it was part of the BBC's standard coverage that they would do a weekly programme during the world championship match. They kept it going even during the lengthy matches between Korchnoi and Karpov in 1978 and Kasparov and Karpov in 1984-5. In some cases, they had to resort to more general chess news or content as with only three games a week, and the availability of postponements, it was possible to get a week where the only game to review was a fifteen or twenty move draw.

It's possible the BBC didn't cover the 1986 match in London and the Soviet Union, as Thames had the rights.

The established Master Game team of Jeremy James and William Hartston were the usual presenters, although other British IMs and GMs of the era would also feature. They may even have used the display methods from the Master Game before the programs took over. In 1972, I seem to think they just put a camera in front of a manual demo board.

I think calling it "World Chess Report" is a slight distortion, as it was about the World Chess Championships and that I think was its title.

(edit) The dates for the BBC coverage in the gettyimages link suggest the programmes continued until 1995. Beyond that the PCA cycle collapsed and Kirsan replaced the FIDE one with a knock-out. It also looks as if sometimes the Candidates matches were covered as well, during the rise of Kasparov for example. (/edit)

Stewart Reuben
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Re: Chess on TV

Post by Stewart Reuben » Wed Nov 11, 2015 2:22 pm

Roger >It's possible the BBC didn't cover the 1986 match in London and the Soviet Union, as Thames had the rights. <

The World Championship match in 1986 at the Park Lane Hotel was covered on both the BBC and Thames (Channel 3) TV. Thames did not hold the rights. Channel 4 in 1993 at The Savoy did hold the rights. BBC did sort of outside broadcasts.
In 1986 Garry had expressed concern that people would know if he exited stage left he was going to his lounge. If he exited stage right, it would be to the toilet. We took pains to disguise this from the audience. Then Nathan Divinsxky on the BBC explained the facts!
When the second half of he match moved to Leningrad only Thames covered it. Ray Keene provided a link to Britain.

The first Master Game series had Leonard Barden as the chess presenter. I don't have any of those in my collection.
Jeremy was the presenter on Ohra 1987, World Cup 1982, Candidates 1984, World Championship 1984, 1985 and the Pilkington Glass World Semis at Sadlers Wells.
I don't list him (although he may have been in the cast) 1993 Short v Timman where is listed Hartston and King. 1995 Kasparov-Anand in NY was Ashley, King, but I don't remember which channel it was on.

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Jon Mahony
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Re: Chess on TV

Post by Jon Mahony » Wed Nov 11, 2015 2:29 pm

By the time the 1993 championship match rolled round the dream team had been replaced by Peter Snow and Carol Vorderman - quite a come down - A woman who if you aren’t talking about her, she isn’t interested and a bell-end.

There is a segment of Voderman interviewing Jon Speelman on Youtube, she asks him some questions, then rudely shuts him up when he starts talking about some game analysis - perish the thought in a Chess WCM :roll: It was disgusting.

Peter Snow had obviously been briefed to get the Masters talking in layman’s terms about any game analysis, but he took this to a whole new level; every time Bill Hartston or David Norwood opened their mouths he would start bawling “What does that mean?! Is it Checkmate?! Why Can’t he play that move??!!” It was like the move check gestapo, I was expecting him to start slapping them with a leather glove!
"When you see a good move, look for a better one!" - Lasker

Stewart Reuben
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Re: Chess on TV

Post by Stewart Reuben » Wed Nov 11, 2015 2:43 pm

Carol Vorderman was the presenter on Channel 4 in 1993 for the chess panel of Keene, Speelman, King and Cathy Forbes. She was an excellent dinner companion.
The concept was all wrong. They started live broadcasting for an hour 3-4pm at the start of the game. That was boring. They should have started the games at 2pm and done the broadcasting from 3-3.30pm. (That was the slot available on Channel 4). An hour on chess is just too boring. The other two 30 minute programmes later on were fine.
Peter Snow was the anchor-man on the BBC programmes in 1993. They couldn't include any live footage because Channel 4 had the rights.

The viewing figures were disappointing and that was basically the end of chess on UK TV. Until hopefully 2016 as Checkmate tell me they expect their programmes to be shown on British TV.

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Dave Ewart
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Re: Chess on TV

Post by Dave Ewart » Wed Nov 11, 2015 3:04 pm

Stewart Reuben wrote:.... Checkmate tell me they expect their programmes to be shown on British TV.
:D :D :D :D

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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Chess on TV

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Wed Nov 11, 2015 4:04 pm

Stewart Reuben wrote:Carol Vorderman was the presenter on Channel 4 in 1993 for the chess panel of Keene, Speelman, King and Cathy Forbes. She was an excellent dinner companion.
The concept was all wrong. They started live broadcasting for an hour 3-4pm at the start of the game. That was boring. They should have started the games at 2pm and done the broadcasting from 3-3.30pm. (That was the slot available on Channel 4). An hour on chess is just too boring. The other two 30 minute programmes later on were fine.
Peter Snow was the anchor-man on the BBC programmes in 1993. They couldn't include any live footage because Channel 4 had the rights.

The viewing figures were disappointing and that was basically the end of chess on UK TV. Until hopefully 2016 as Checkmate tell me they expect their programmes to be shown on British TV.
The final chess coverage I recall on terrestrial TV was BBC programmes on the 1995 Anand-Kasparov match? Nothing since then I think.
"Set up your attacks so that when the fire is out, it isn't out!" (H N Pillsbury)

Jonathan Rogers
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Re: Chess on TV

Post by Jonathan Rogers » Wed Nov 11, 2015 6:05 pm

still remember Peter Snow interviewing Nigel Short just after he beat Timman in 1993:

NS: [says something which concedes that Kasparov will start as favourite]

PS: "Why is that? Is he better than you?"

Perhaps it was the manner of the question but it got a laugh among the crowd in my student digs.

Stewart Reuben
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Re: Chess on TV

Post by Stewart Reuben » Thu Dec 03, 2015 11:12 pm


Kevin O'Rourke
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Re:

Post by Kevin O'Rourke » Sun Dec 06, 2015 2:03 pm

Greg Breed wrote:Standard Play Chess cannot be televised live. Neither can a poker tournament. It's too boring. It's also too long. Highlights would work and I would love it if those highlights were prepared with annotations by experts with charisma and a bit of humour such as Danny King. Rapid Chess would also work but I would still prefer edited and annotated highlights.
if you remember that awful program big brother, it had highlights :| and also a live feed on E4, where, for e.g. you could watch someone sleeping or whatever. The red button on BBC allow you to watch the whole of some snooker live or you can just choose to watch the main program.

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Re: Chess on TV

Post by Stewart Reuben » Sun Dec 06, 2015 9:25 pm

Hastings chess was actually filmed for Big Brother. We never understood why. I try to get the attractive females interviewed.
Poker hands last only 1 minute approximately.

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Re: Chess on TV

Post by John McKenna » Tue Dec 15, 2015 10:40 am

Agon is the commercial partner of FIDE, NRK a leadin Norwegian TV network. The latter has paid a record sum to secure long-term broadcasting rights for World Championship events on TV, from now until 2020.
http://en.chessbase.com/post/agon-fide- ... media-deal

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Jon Mahony
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Re: Re:

Post by Jon Mahony » Tue Dec 15, 2015 11:37 am

Kevin O'Rourke wrote:
Greg Breed wrote:Standard Play Chess cannot be televised live. Neither can a poker tournament. It's too boring. It's also too long. Highlights would work and I would love it if those highlights were prepared with annotations by experts with charisma and a bit of humour such as Danny King. Rapid Chess would also work but I would still prefer edited and annotated highlights.
if you remember that awful program big brother, it had highlights :| and also a live feed on E4, where, for e.g. you could watch someone sleeping or whatever. The red button on BBC allow you to watch the whole of some snooker live or you can just choose to watch the main program.
I quite like watching live poker tournament’s, yes 9 out of 10 times it will be fold, fold, fold, fold, call, check, check, raise, fold, post flop, but it’s interesting to watch listen to the table talk etc, especially when the likes of The Devilfish (RIP!) and The poker brat are at the table (I like to watch the latter make an arse of himself, can’t actually abide him). Admittedly the value of this goes down if you have dull players at the table (85%) who sit in hoodies and shades staring. Frankly what you really want in poker is a table full of arrogant Tw***s I really do wish the World Series could be shown unabridged, I’d sit through it.

Chess on the other hand, a live 6 hour game with more chess geek commentators attempting to fill dead air in the half hours between moves… not so much :roll: it couldn’t be live.
"When you see a good move, look for a better one!" - Lasker

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IM Jack Rudd
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Re: Chess on TV

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Tue Dec 15, 2015 11:52 am

Chess can be live, but you're right, live broadcasts of just one game do have the dead air problem. A tournament with multiple games going on simultaneously is more viewer-friendly.

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