13-01-2024, 03:44 AM
(13-01-2024, 12:27 AM)lookoutwales Wrote: The usual post-Newsnight highlights of the Masters snooker have made way for further live coverage of the Mark Allen v Mark Selby semi-final on BBC2.
Pretty good call - and it's allowed BBC4 to get on with their Annie Nightingale tribute repeat as billed.
The full BBC Sport experience for the snooker tonight. Started on BBC Two, moved after an hour to BBC Four, to move back to BBC Two.
Seema Jaswal starting the week on primetime ITV (The FA Cup draw) and ending it on primetime BBC. Shaun Murphy was tonight's pundit and on air at close to 00:30 despite him having to play at 13:00 today.
I'm still not sure how to judge active players being pundits/commentators on tournaments they are playing in; on one hand, I'd rather them concentrate on their playing and preperations, but on the other it adds a different perspective and more recent experience to the coverage, which should be a positive. It hasn't done any harm to the two player-pundits this week as they have both made the semi-finals.
Dennis Taylor has been absent this week, though John Virgo has done his first Masters in quite a few years. It was the other way at the UK Championships. It looks that both do 2/3 of the BBC tournaments now, following their un-sacking last year (I think Dennis did all three last season).
And it still bugs me slightly that the only BBC Sport graphics that extend to the sides of the sreen is the snooker scoreboard.