Cup of China on British Eurosport. Bah.

There is live snooker scheduled this weekend, ahead of a lot of the "scheduled" live figure skating coverage.

Those who live in the UK will know what that means. But for everyone else:

The scheduled amount of time for the live snooker is about 1.5 hours each day.
That's a bad joke, because in snooker, nothing happens in just 1.5 hours:

A match will be in two sessions. Each session is 8 games (for it is a game, not a sport).

Each game consists mostly of contemplation, strolling around the table, peeping at balls from all angles, chalking cues, and "safety" shots. Eventually, one player will make a mistake on a safety shot, allowing the other to pot a ball - or several if we are lucky (But we are rarely lucky). Each game therefore takes an age, and there will also be a 15 minute break after 4 games.

Scheduling just 1.5 hours for a session of live snooker is an insult to our intelligence. Because we all know by now, that it will overrun by several hours - steamrolling all other coverage that was scheduled after it.

And they like to schedule skating right after the live snooker, presumably because they think nobody will mind - why else would they repeat the same 30 minute "ski pass" program 5 times or more last weekend (while only scheduling 15 minutes for each showing)... when they could have been showing more of Skate Canada than they did?

I imagine a fair proportion of their viewing figures for snooker, are in fact skating fans who are screaming obsenities at their TVs. Their best ever, was a live snooker match on Eurosport2 last year, overunning and crushing all other scheduled programs as usual (ie. skating). The match ended but they continued to broadcast basically nothing.... random people milling about... while they waited for the award ceremony. (I note they rarely show medal cermonies for skating!). Meanwhile, over on Eurosport1 they were showing the exact same snooker match, time-shifted by about an hour - steamrolling other scheduled programming on that channel as well! All this for a game that is so "big", its major international championships are held in a corner of a school gymnasium

So yeah. This is the kind of thing we have in store for our live coverage of Cup of China this weekend, on British Eurosport. Once again, we will likely only see highlights rather than live coverage - and these will only be the top three scorers from each discipline. We will be denied all other performances, along with great swathes of the often-priceless commentary from the Simon Reed Gang.

Even better, Eurosport loves to change the schedules constantly, sometimes just seconds before a program starts. If you are not constantly keeping an eye on Eurosport all day, every day... you may miss what coverage they eventually do show. And setting your recorder is largely futile.

BAH!

Even some of our skating highlights are at risk, due to live tennis. Eurosport typically only schedules enough time for a straight-sets dominating winner. It therefore frequently overruns... and because everything from "pub darts" to "provincial cow-pat tossing" takes precedance over skating on British Eurosport... any skating coverage that was scheduled after it, will be cancelled.

I note they didn't even show the gala from Skate America, even though it seems that Eurosport viewers in Russia got that.

There's a reason that in the US, when you have been either fooled or are up the creek without a paddle, you say, "I've been snookered."

^ lol really? this must be the most accurate saying I've heard!

But yeah, HATE live snooker. Should be banned from TV.
I mean, the majority of other sports have an estimated time schedule. Soccer game is 90 minutes. Basketball, handball, hockey - all have the exactly defined number of minutes. Volleyball game can last from 1,5 h to probably 2,5 BUT they usually reserve at least 2 hours for volleyball. With the majority of world's sports you can at least estimate how long the coverage may last. But not with snooker, the king of all! here the coverage is dependent on a bunch of guys who walk around a huge table and THINK! And they think forever and it takes out half of the scheduled coverages from the channel that calls itself EuroSPORT.

To make you feel better, I think most of European Eurosports do the same thing with snooker vs figure skating. I know in my country they do too. Perhaps they show more skating in Russia, for obvious reasons, but that's it.

Right. I can understand your annoyance because of what has happened in the past, but I feel I have to correct you, becuase in this case you are rather far off the mark.

Firstly, sorry that I haven't put up the Eurosport schedule for the Cup of China yet, but I haven't finished checking all the foreign Eurosports because I've been watching the snooker!

Also, I have been putting it off to the last minute because of something that happened a few days ago.

During one of the afternoon sessions of the snooker, the commentator told us that there was a last minute schedule change and that we would be leaving the snooker shortly to go to a football match that they had not been planning on showing, and that once the football was over, we would be going back to the snooker for the conclusion of the match.

So, when Eurosport are making schedule changes like that when a live broadcast is already on, it shows that there is not much point in me trawling through the schedules 3 or 4 days in advance!

But, when I do post it (later today), I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

When I posted my warning about the snooker last week, I didn't have the tournament format. So, I didn't realise that by the time the Cup of China started, we would be down to one table.

The Cup of China Skating is being shown on British Eurosport 2 on both Friday and Saturday.

On Friday, the Snooker is on British Eurosport 1. So, it WILL NOT affect the coverage of the skating

On Saturday, there is qualifying for the World Touring Cars on British Eurosport 1, so the first session of the Snooker will start on British Eurosport 2. HOWEVER, once the Tourings Cars are over, the Snooker will switch to British Eurosport 1. So, if the Free Dance is affected, it will be the fault of the Touring Cars, NOT the snooker.

The second session of the Snooker is back to British Eurosport 1, so it WILL NOT affect the coverage of the Skating.

The only problem may be the Women's Tennis later in the day. But, since the Skating will be reaching its conclusion, I think Eurosport will stick with it, rather than switch to something that is only starting.

If Eurosport do stick to their schedule, it will be a very comprehensive coverage of the Cup of China.

So, let's hope there are no delays from the Touring Cars

CaroLiza_fan

Aha. Thanks CaroLiza_fan.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think this might be an example of the (infuriatingly) "fluid" nature of Eurosport's scheduling: When I looked at the schedule a couple of days ago, I don't think the live snooker was scheduled on the Friday or Saturday mornings on Eurosport1 at that time (ie. the switch from Eurosport2 to Eurosport1 after 90 or 60 minutes). I could be wrong though - I printed the schedule at that time, but don't have access to it right now, and can't check.

Forgive my pessimism, but the skating has been "snookered" so many times in the past...! (And no, it's not just snooker either)

www.tvteka.com for live, un-geoblocked coverage. $12 per month. There's also a 3 day free trial so you can watch one GP event for free to see if it works for you. All events are archived and you can watch them later as well.

If you use Google Chrome, you can auto-translate the whole page.

Ziggy said:

www.tvteka.com for live, un-geoblocked coverage. $12 per month. There's also a 3 day free trial so you can watch one GP event for free to see if it works for you. All events are archived and you can watch them later as well.

If you use Google Chrome, you can auto-translate the whole page.

Click to expand...

Is that in HD?

Regardless - I'd rather not have to turn to the internet, I want to watch on my TV (with no computer-to-TV jiggery-pokery). I like British Eurosport coverage (because of Simon Reed et al commentating), it's just the clowns in charge of scheduling that I take issue with. I also prefer not pay more for my coverage...

Not HD but a reasonably high quality.

The people in charge are just doing their job. Snooker is a more popular sport than figure skating in the UK so it's always going to be priority (not that Eurosport isn't terrible for a lot of other reasons - but then you like the actual coverage ).

YesWay said:

There is live snooker scheduled this weekend, ahead of a lot of the "scheduled" live figure skating coverage.

Those who live in the UK will know what that means. But for everyone else:

The scheduled amount of time for the live snooker is about 1.5 hours each day.
That's a bad joke, because in snooker, nothing happens in just 1.5 hours:


BAH!

Click to expand...

As choleric rants go, this was simply a masterpiece, and had me in stitches. The white-hot sarcasm was a superb counterpoint to the stately pace of the satire.

If it weren't for the fact that CaroLiza_fan's post de-fanged the substance of the post, I was ready to march on British Eurosport HQ (in spirit, that is, since I don't actually live in the UK ).

Having been a fan of BritEurosport skating coverage for a while now, I will corroborate, though, that I have actually learned more than I ever cared to know about snooker as a consequence. I can't remember precisely, but there was an important event a while back, possibly a WC, in which I spent a good deal of time watching people stare at the baize and chalk cues.

So I sympathize with your post, and breathe a sigh of relief if CaroLiza's_fan's assurances come to pass.

Looks like no gala again on British Eurosport.

Live snooker final. The match is still going - despite going on all day, and past midnight where they're playing. Last game lasted over an hour... and despite another 2 hours of the same snooker being scheduled for later this evening (UK time).

What are the chances they will cancel that 2 hours and replace it with the Cup of China gala we have now missed?

Hah! As if! Like even!

This is British Eurosport we're talking about!

I suppose I should be grateful that we got coverage of nearly everything else.

Yahoo! I am happy to be proven wrong! The snooker finally ended, they are showing the gala right now. How much of it remains to be seen, but it looks like its from the beginning, so hopefully it's the whole thing!