Media comments on chess

[Stewart Reuben]

FIDE have aimed higher.
Jacques Chirac is a 'Grand Commender of the Legion of Grandmasters'. (That may be a misprint for commander).

Lennox Lewis and Steve Davis are merely 'Commenders of the Legion of Grandmasters'.
President Ibrahim Badamasi, Nigeria was appointed not only a commender in 1992, but also a 'Grand Knight'.
Juan Antonio Samaranch, Mikhail Gorbachov, Fridrik Olafsson are also 'Grand Knights of FIDE'.

You couldn't make it up.
I have just listed a few. Some have passed away and others I don't know.

[David Robertson]

Stephen Moss makes for gloomy reading today

[Alex Holowczak]

Stephen Moss makes for gloomy reading today

One of the comments to the article, which I reproduce here without comment myself, is:

"Football is a great game, chess is a great game, but chess doesn't have random people spouting off crap about anything"

[Christopher Kreuzer]

An article today from the BBC business section:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24954340

'Alan Trefler: The chess master turned global chief executive'.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Football is a great game, chess is a great game, but chess doesn't have random people spouting off crap about anything"

written by someone who hasn't read the comments on the youtube coverage of the world championship...

[Jonathan Bryant]

"Football is a great game, chess is a great game, but chess doesn't have random people spouting off crap about anything"

written by someone who hasn't read the comments on the youtube coverage of the world championship...

Or chess blogs.

[Stewart Reuben]

In this evening's 'Ripper Street on BBc1 at 9pm apparently a British mp says
'Trust an Irishman. I'd sooner play chess with an orang-utan.'

[Matt Mackenzie]

"Football is a great game, chess is a great game, but chess doesn't have random people spouting off crap about anything"

written by someone who hasn't read the comments on the youtube coverage of the world championship...

Or chess blogs.

Yes, the "these two players are patzers" merchants on chessgames.com are always good to read - though maybe not in the way they intended

[Clive Blackburn]

Yes, the "these two players are patzers" merchants on chessgames.com are always good to read - though maybe not in the way they intended

Yes, the sort whose instant reaction to any move which they don't understand is "BLUNDER!!!"

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Interesting article here:

http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/comment/ar ... than-anand

[Jonathan Bryant]

Not as interesting as the question as to where exactly that ludicrous number in the headline came from.

Check out Matt Fletcher's twitter feed for some sterling work calling out the journo in question (and others) for their unsupported assertions. Said journo was reduced to something very akin to a Brass Eye-like "there's no evidence for this, but it is a fact" before ending with an exasperated, Well how many people do *You* think are watching? The answer to that, of course, being "Well, I don't know because journalists like you can't be bothered to do your effin job properly".

Meanwhile, the very interesting question of how many people in Britain/The World really are watching the match goes unanswered. It's always going to be a guestimate at best, but does anybody know of any evidence-based figure?

[Matt Fletcher]

Thanks Jonathan - I thought I was more restrained than that

On the "actual" figures -

This story suggests 700,000 in Norway which sounds plausible.

I can maybe believe the figure Susan Polgar quotes of 80m watching some of the TV highlights shows in India (although it seems on the high side and I'd obviously like to see more evidence for this).

Given that it's not apparently televised elsewhere, any extra viewers would have to be via the internet feed(s). I've no real idea what the viewing figures are likely to be for these - however some figures that aren't too difficult to find re interest on the net:

• 144,000 views of the Youtube version of the FIDE feed of game 1 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH_5Ko7QCi8
• 33,000 views on Danny King's analysis of game 5 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbrpQKJXXZs
• 18,000 views on Andrew Martin's analysis of game 1 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptQ3WeJ-z6o

So you can certainly argue for a few hundred thousand which again seems plausible. But maybe someone else more knowledgeable can have a better stab.

There's a bit of a problem that it's in the wrong timezone for the US (amongst other places) where presumably there could be a fair bit of interest. There's also the issue of whether or not to 'count' people who read about it in the papers, online etc (I'd say not, on the basis that I read about a lot of stuff without "following" it).

Given this, I think the key figure is the number of television viewers (80m+?) in India.

[Chris Rice]

80 million is likely to be just one village in India! Seriously though I think Susan Polgar is relying on the information on the Chessdom site here http://www.chessdom.com/anand-carlsen-8 ... gle-round/

[Matt Fletcher]

Chris - yes I think that's right - or at least, I think the figures both come from the same source.

The phrase that rang slight alarm bells for me was "as many as" which could mean either "the surprisingly high number of" or a synonym for "up to" (which itself could mean anything from 0 to 80m). I also haven't been able to find anything obvious on the Doordashan website (though I haven't dug really deep).

So yes, it may well be 80m but I don't see that we know for sure yet (it's certainly more plausible than a billion).

[Chris Rice]

Just checked Chessdom site today Matt and they seem to be getting more sophisticated on the viewer tracking figures

http://www.chessdom.com/between-100-and ... every-day/

Got to be good news for chess whichever way you slice them up.