Chess on television

I find it odd that we have television matches in poker, billiards, bowling, and all kinds of sports, including sliding those little teakettles on ice in the olympics, but there is nothing on chess. During Fischer/Spassky in 1972 there was some television coverage, and many years ago I think George Koltanowski had a tv show for a while, but that's it as far as I know. There is not much to observe of the players, perhaps a sidebox on the screen would suffice, but the analysis by experts, discussion of past games and openings, discussion of the players are all possible. In the Olympics for example, before and after an event, there is a presentation about the player, and how he trained, a short biography, and so on. Such things could be added to flesh out the players. The analysis can be made understandable to the millions of players from amateur to master. I know there are millions of players, so there must be an advertising market. While not everyone watches the history channel (I like it), there are enough people who watch that it is on the air. So why not chess? I will guess that it is because the people who are program heads are not into it. 

How about we players at chess.com starting a write in campaign to urge some television stations to broadcast chess. We have lots of interesting personalities (characters), teachers, and so on. With women now playing chess more and more, we have a broader appeal as in sports and a wider audience in effect. It would also provide an extra venue to chess masters who could become broadcast journalists, and advertisers such as chess.com, other sites, computer programs, publishers, etc.

What does the rest of the community think? Erik--our fearless leader?? Ready for showbiz? Maybe a chess centered screenplay to take us to broadway...

I AGREE THIS IS A GREAT IDEA!!!!!!! 

I would watch it!!  Anything is better than watching Golf on TV and they have a whole channel for that!!

I agree with you darius there,the only is... big company like tv stations are only interested in one thing ...that is money $$

I bet there's a market. There are millions of players worldwide. They are a market both for chess related and other commercial items. Many players are young and the young are a good market for lots of goods. All it needs is someone with imagination to get it going. There's a profit there if done right. It's got to be better than bowling, pool, and poker. Certainly a bigger market than the high school band which is televised and plays out of sync with poor sound quality. In the beginning the tennis audience was probably small but as it was televised and people talk about it and personalities emerge, interest spreads and audience grows. Just think, we can have the kco talk show. You interview chess personalities and on the darius show I will interview the checker champ!

OMG me!! no thanks darius but thanks for the offer. Let start something small and work you way up.

Already you guys have got kasparov and karpov chess acdemy in the U.S. !

This wont happen ever ever ever no matter how many people demand it.

No TV channel will put a blank screen on for 40 minutes while some idiot looks for a mate in one when you have both a knight and queena ttacking h7.

Good idea, but no-one wold do it as the TV channels would get jack from advertisements during chess time (stereotyped, I know, but the sad truth)

Even blitz games would be hard with commentary AND watching the moves at the same time...sigh...this si so annoying

cheesechat instead of saying that, we should be saying  " what can we do to make it work ?"

If they can have 400 shopping channels, professional bowling which is a close 2nd to the sleeping pill known as golf (both of which I do but refuse to watch), then they can have chess. Of course, the majority of people watching  televisiov have then mental capacities of a sponge and an IQ matched only by their shoe sizes. Oh man, don't get me started on idiots staring into the idiot box. I do think they should have chess televised. I'd watch it.

so you will watch it, then what is your shoe size ?

I would watch it.  I've watched about every chess video on youtube.

well live chess wouldn't work because even a someone who loves chess such as I do would get verrrrrrrrrrrrrry bored watching anand think over his move for  5 minutes while we stare at the chess board thats not moving............but they could record games and that would be more interesting if we got a minute or two between moves and it kept going

the kasparov vs deep jr. match was espn 2, it was pretty boring, I watched kasparov stare at the board for around 30mins, then they agreed on a draw.

^^^^^

what I'm talking about right there........

i agree with darius, chess is negleted, darts, snooker.

i have a show size of 12 is that good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

heh, chess wouldn't make it on american tv, but it probably would in europe (unless they already cover it over there)  it all comes back to an overall lack of interest, in america at least.

You know, I've got access to a local Cable Studio.  I'll bet I could get something started.  It would have an enormously small audience at first, but I'll bet we could do something with it.

There's no way any kind of Live Chess would work.  As everyone says, there's too much time of nothing happening.  But lots of other sports have their down moments as well.  Like Darius said, if you fill those in with commentary, background videos on the players, etc., and edit out the long pauses, then the games would appear to move along much faster than they did in real life.

So what kind of a name would be the coolest for such a show?  And how many games do you think would be the best to show in a standard half hour show?

It'd have to be highlights or a blitz match. The problem is there's millions of players but not many of them know what's happening at master level.

I've always thought that amateurs should do it  and show it can be done. We should try and film some matches and provide the works ourselves. If they see it happens and is popular....

Well, the reason things like poker, golf and baseball (where most of what you're seeing is people sitting/standing around waiting for the next card or the next shot or the next pitch) work, at least in the U.S., is because the average person can understand and relate to what is going on even if s/he doesn't play or doesn't play well.

Chess really isn't like that. It's hard to develop the skill necessary to understand what's going on without spending a lot of time developing the necessary skills to play at a fairly high level.  It's a much harder sell based on the game itself.

So if you're going to sell it, you have to package it in a way that patzers can relate to what they're seeing. So what might work? Steve Lopez speculated on this in a series of articles he wrote a few years back and his basic conclusion was 30 second chess with commentary by someone interesting and animated might be the best way to go. Here are some twists by me on his basic idea:

1.  The idea behind the 30 second per move idea was to keep things moving but on a regular pace.  There's no advantage to moving fast if you get exactly 30 seconds for your next move, so you might as well use all your time. I'd take it a step further and have a "warning tone" 5 seconds before the time limit and a player is required to move after the warning tone and before the "forfit tone." The reason is that whatever sort of commentary is going on in parallel, the commentators are going to need the time without being distracted by having to react to an early new move.

2.  Have an engine or multiple engines revved up on the side drawing arrows on some sort of a computer board.  Think John Madden going crazy doodling an offense or defense on top of a replay -- only you'd need a computer to do it fast enough in real time.  Maybe this part could be done later and edited in for broadcast. Doing it live (or at least maintaining the illusion) seems better than adding the commentary later.

3.  One or two dynamic commentators spewing in real time (I can't see doing this latter, editing it in, and maintaing any sense of spontenaety).

4.  This is going to sound a bit sexist, but one of the commentators should be a cute lady with a chess title if you want to maximize your audience.

5.  At least part of the view needs to be a shot of real players sitting at a real chess board moving real chess pieces, not two players sitting in front of two different computers pointing and clicking with a mouse. That should be the main shot at least between the warning tone and the forfit tone. That scene with the two players could then be shrunk to a small corner window while looking at a split screen of the commentators or the computer display with the graphics.  My guess is some experimentation would reveal the right mix of screen space.

6.  Put a significant amount of money on the line.

Anyway, just some stray thoughts...

L8erz...

=wild=