The WSOP HORSE final table will be aired on Tuesday. That will be the last 2007 WSOP episode on TV.
Tonight's High Stakes Poker episode is the last before the much-anticipated $500K-minimum-buyin game starts.
Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.
Monday, October 29, 2007
ESPN/ABC To Apply Poker Model To Football Broadcasts
According to an article in the current issue of SMARTMEDIA Magazine, Matt Marantz, ESPN's WSOP producer, is taking over as executive producer of ESPN/ABC's football broadcasts. He intends to adopt the poker broadcasting model for football games. The shows will be shorter, edited broadcasts concentrating on the most interesting plays, with more human interest segments. A few excerpts from the interview are below.
Marantz had been lobbying ESPN's upper management for the position for a while:
I convinced them that football's stagnant ratings weren't out of their control. Poker ratings have boomed since 2003 because we have a better broadcast model. They decided to give me a shot. I believe we'll see the same sort of ratings increases for football as we did with poker as soon as I'm able to implement the new techniques.
....
Basically, we have to start appealing to the mass audience. They've left that audience on the table in the past. It seems like the producers are football people and they've been making the show for people like themselves. But most people aren't into football. Have you ever seen football's ratings among women? If we just got a significant percentage of them to watch, ratings would soar. We have to start appealing to the people who aren't interested in football, and who currently skip by the channel when they see a football game on.
Marantz plans on adding comedy and human interest elements to broaden the shows' appeal:
In the broadcast booth I'd like to pair a world-class comedian like Robin Williams with someone who understands football and can explain it in simple terms to those that don't.
....
We'll be adding a lot of human interest segments. I want to do tours of the players homes, conducted by the wives. That would be great for the female demographic. If we can find players with cancer or other diseases, our viewers will eat that up. Generally, we'll add a lot more interviews with players. Also, I want to mike up the players on the field and perhaps add helmet-cams. I want to find rivalries between players and follow them during the games. It's the people that will make it interesting, not the football.
The shows will be much shorter, concentrating on the highlights:
We'll dedicate a one-hour show to each game. I can barely sit through the three-hour-plus games now. Most plays in football are boring, so we'll leave them out. And why do we have to show players mulling around pre-snap? We don't. We don't even have to show the entire field. Or the whole play. I just want to see the quarterback throwing the ball and the receiver catching it. Or maybe just the receiver catching it. That will save more time for non-football content, which appeals to the mass market. I'd like to have about one human-interest segment and a few plays per drive. If we keep on showing boring plays no one's ever going to learn about the game, become involved in the drama, become a fan, and tune in again.
Marantz doesn't think the current format of football games is ideal, and wants to experiment with changes:
Made-for-TV invitational events would be a lot cheaper to film and have greater star power, which is what people want to see. But I've run into a lot of resistance on this front. I did get approval to make a pilot of my idea at least. I'll pit the top quarterbacks against each other. Maybe Tom Brady versus Payton Manning. They'd each get one star running back and two star receivers to play with them. We'd air each match in a half hour. I'm sure when people see it they'll be more open to changing the format of all the games.
Marantz had been lobbying ESPN's upper management for the position for a while:
I convinced them that football's stagnant ratings weren't out of their control. Poker ratings have boomed since 2003 because we have a better broadcast model. They decided to give me a shot. I believe we'll see the same sort of ratings increases for football as we did with poker as soon as I'm able to implement the new techniques.
....
Basically, we have to start appealing to the mass audience. They've left that audience on the table in the past. It seems like the producers are football people and they've been making the show for people like themselves. But most people aren't into football. Have you ever seen football's ratings among women? If we just got a significant percentage of them to watch, ratings would soar. We have to start appealing to the people who aren't interested in football, and who currently skip by the channel when they see a football game on.
Marantz plans on adding comedy and human interest elements to broaden the shows' appeal:
In the broadcast booth I'd like to pair a world-class comedian like Robin Williams with someone who understands football and can explain it in simple terms to those that don't.
....
We'll be adding a lot of human interest segments. I want to do tours of the players homes, conducted by the wives. That would be great for the female demographic. If we can find players with cancer or other diseases, our viewers will eat that up. Generally, we'll add a lot more interviews with players. Also, I want to mike up the players on the field and perhaps add helmet-cams. I want to find rivalries between players and follow them during the games. It's the people that will make it interesting, not the football.
The shows will be much shorter, concentrating on the highlights:
We'll dedicate a one-hour show to each game. I can barely sit through the three-hour-plus games now. Most plays in football are boring, so we'll leave them out. And why do we have to show players mulling around pre-snap? We don't. We don't even have to show the entire field. Or the whole play. I just want to see the quarterback throwing the ball and the receiver catching it. Or maybe just the receiver catching it. That will save more time for non-football content, which appeals to the mass market. I'd like to have about one human-interest segment and a few plays per drive. If we keep on showing boring plays no one's ever going to learn about the game, become involved in the drama, become a fan, and tune in again.
Marantz doesn't think the current format of football games is ideal, and wants to experiment with changes:
Made-for-TV invitational events would be a lot cheaper to film and have greater star power, which is what people want to see. But I've run into a lot of resistance on this front. I did get approval to make a pilot of my idea at least. I'll pit the top quarterbacks against each other. Maybe Tom Brady versus Payton Manning. They'd each get one star running back and two star receivers to play with them. We'd air each match in a half hour. I'm sure when people see it they'll be more open to changing the format of all the games.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Poker After Dark Season Three Matchups
All In published a list of the 10 matchups for the third season of Poker After Dark. Themes include commentators, hecklers, cowboy hats, international, "Gus & The Ladies," couples, golf, and one where an amateur got to pick his opponents. It finished taping recently and will air starting in January.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Poker TV Channel Under Development
Pokerati reports that Stan Sludikoff, publisher of Poker Player Newspaper, is developing a poker TV channel with Lyle Berman, Chairman/CEO of Lakes Entertainment, which controls the World Poker Tour.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Poker on TV Update, October 20, 2007
As previously mentioned, ESPN will be showing high stakes golf from 3-5 PM the next two Sundays. Contestants including Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, and Dewey Tomko put up $1 million each to compete.
Other than that, nothing is new: the WSOP HORSE tournament and High Stakes Poker continue; Poker After Dark is off for a few weeks.
Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.
Other than that, nothing is new: the WSOP HORSE tournament and High Stakes Poker continue; Poker After Dark is off for a few weeks.
Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Executive Poker Tour Filming Next Week In Atlantic City
The Executive Poker Tour will film:
See the press release for more information.
- $100,000-minimum-buyin cash games on Wednesday the 24th and Thursday the 25th; and
- a $2,500 buyin tournament Friday the 26th through Saturday the 27th. A TV table Friday and the final table Saturday and will be filmed. Players can guarantee themselves a seat at Friday's TV table by making a contribution to Project Lifesaver International when registering for the event. Lee Childs, Rhett Butler, and Steve Dannenmann have committed to play the tournament.
See the press release for more information.
More Video Of the WPT Hostesses
If you enjoyed our previous videos of the new WPT hostesses, Layla Kayleigh and Kimberly Lansing, you may enjoy this too (particularly the last 30 seconds).
WSOP Executive Wants To Broadcast Main Event Final Table Live Next Year
I doubt it will happen, but Ty Stewart, Director of Sponsorship and Marketing for the World Series of Poker, had an interesting idea:
He wants to broadcast the Main Event final table LIVE.
WITH HOLE CARDS.
The idea would be to play down to the final table and then adjourn the Series. All the other episodes of the Main Event would air and TV would have a couple months to get to know the players. Then they would reconvene and play a sequestered final table and the later portion of the final table would be broadcast live. The audience would see every player's cards and commentators would be able to analyze the strategy in real time.
Potential problems abound: technical issues, gaming control issues, player reaction, broadcaster reaction. But Ty Stewart sees The Big Picture. This has the potential to turn televised poker into a fringe sports-like activity with a loyal but scattered audience into a reality-programming phenomenon on the order of Survivor, American Idol, or Dancing with the Stars.
Michael Craig's follow-up post has more information.Monday, October 15, 2007
$50K HORSE and High Stakes Golf
ESPN is showing the WSOP $50,000 HORSE event for the next three Tuesdays. I'd rank it as the second-most-important tournament in the world, after the Main Event. The quality of play should be much higher than the Main Event, however, with multiple world-class players on each table (only 148 players entered the tournament). They're actually playing HORSE through the entire tournament this time (last year the final table was no-limit Hold'em, a game not even included in HORSE).
There are no new Poker After Dark episodes for a few weeks.
The next two Sundays ESPN will be showing high stakes golf from 3-5 PM. Contestants including Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, and Dewey Tomko put up $1 million each to compete.
Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.
There are no new Poker After Dark episodes for a few weeks.
The next two Sundays ESPN will be showing high stakes golf from 3-5 PM. Contestants including Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, and Dewey Tomko put up $1 million each to compete.
Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.
Poker After Dark Review
I'm raising Poker After Dark's rating from three stars (see previous review) to four. It has become my favorite poker show on TV. It's the only poker show that I really look forward to watching, and that I'm sorry when each episode ends.
Its strength is clearly that it shows most of the hands. It's the only show on TV that allows us to see how the players really play. Other poker shows generally show 20% or fewer of the hands.
One of the show's greatest weaknesses is its odd format: shorthanded, winner-take-all single-table tournaments. I've never played that format, and probably never will. Why couldn't they have adopted a format that's common in the real world? Full ring single-table tournaments that pay 50/30/20% are common. Better yet, they could have showed a cash game. I don't know why poker producers are so fascinated by tournaments: most poker played in the real world is for cash, and it consistently makes for more interesting television in my experience. Shorthanded (six-person) cash games are common online, wouldn't require any changes to their set, and would have some additional advantages:
- They wouldn't have to deal with the variable lengths of tournaments, and could just shoot enough of each table to fill up one week of programs, showing every hand played.
- When the current tournaments get down to the last day or two I find them much less interesting than the rest of the week. Cash games never get shorthanded or shortstacked, so they'd be equally interesting for every show.
Another weak spot is the show's display of hole-card graphics. They're shown for too short a time (sometimes even two sets at a time), and too much of that screen time is used for a transition effect. The hole card graphics are stacked one on top of the other on the lower left of the screen, which means that the order of action postflop is impossible to figure out (it depends on the positions of the players that saw the flop). The order of action should be consistently in one direction, and they need to add position indicators to the graphics (e.g. showing which players are in the blinds and on the button). The best practice in this area is to arrange the hole cards around the edges of the screen, with the blinds at the top and the button on the left side so the order of action is always clockwise (corresponding to the action on the poker table). Poker After Dark should also display all the hole cards at the beginning of the hand, rather than as the players act. This method, used on Poker Dome among other shows, is a huge improvement over showing hole cards one at a time: Poker Dome taught me an incredible amount about short-handed play because of it.
Like all poker shows, Poker After Dark could use more onscreen information. They don't even usually show win percentages. I'd like to see draws/outs, odds, pot odds, and stack sizes. With good onscreen graphics, a play-by-play announcer becomes unnecessary. Unless they're going to provide a top-flight analyst like Phil Gordon, I think they should eliminate the announcer and just give us better onscreen graphics. That would have the additional benefit of allowing us to hear the table talk. Once recently I remember being frustrated that Ali Nejad was covering up the table talk to give us the chip count at the same time as it was displayed onscreen (a graphic that they always show for too short a time).
Some shows are a lot better than others at making the table talk easy to hear. On Celebrity Poker Showdown I could always easily hear the players, the tournament director doing play-by-play, and two announcers. The World Poker Tour does a good job in this area as well. Shows by POKER-PROductions (e.g. this and High Stakes Poker), on the other hand, have difficulty with this. I'm not sure what the difference is, but I notice people talking over one another, significant background noise, and loud chip noises.
They waste time with non-poker content that I think should be used to show us more hands: every show has an opening credits sequence, scenes from last time, player introductions, and scenes from the upcoming episode. I'd like to see all those segments eliminated, though it might be worthwhile to keep the player introductions for the first show of the week (I watch enough poker on TV to know who all the players are anyway). Even Shana's interviews are usually a waste of time in my opinion. Sure, she looks terrific when she dresses well (too infrequently unfortunately), but most of the interviews have no valuable content and are sometimes uncomfortable. There are exceptions: John Juanda telling us how he was going to exploit David Williams's play, then watching Juanda do it, was brilliant; and I'll listen to anything Barry Greenstein has to say. We might be best served by continuing to film the interviews but leaving the majority of them on the cutting-room floor. Sometimes I've seen Shana conduct interviews during the middle of a big hand, as well, which there's no excuse for.
I still find Poker After Dark's use of cash in a tournament offensive, and encourage players on the show to use it as cash (e.g. tipping the cocktail waitress with it) until the producers start using tournament chips. Pretending that the show is filmed at night over a week is also offensive, but I was pleased to notice some players refusing to go along with that farce on recent shows. I also still think that the producers encourage the players to gab it up, occasionally producing uncomfortable or embarrassing results. Let the players be themselves!
I've only watched the weekend Director's Cut episodes a few times, and I don't find them worth watching. Perhaps the producers could change the format of that show to cover the entire tournament in an hour. I don't claim to know what anyone other than me likes, but there is common speculation that many potential poker viewers are bored by seeing a lot of hands (like we see on the weekday Poker After Dark shows) and are more interested in seeing just a few big hands (as shown on most poker shows). Showing the same tournament both ways would provide a useful test of the theory that there are significant groups with such opposite preferences.
Showing most of the hands played makes Poker After Dark the only show on US TV where we can see how our favorite pros actually play. The show could be improved in a lot of ways, but I find it to be the most compelling poker on TV right now.
Its strength is clearly that it shows most of the hands. It's the only show on TV that allows us to see how the players really play. Other poker shows generally show 20% or fewer of the hands.
One of the show's greatest weaknesses is its odd format: shorthanded, winner-take-all single-table tournaments. I've never played that format, and probably never will. Why couldn't they have adopted a format that's common in the real world? Full ring single-table tournaments that pay 50/30/20% are common. Better yet, they could have showed a cash game. I don't know why poker producers are so fascinated by tournaments: most poker played in the real world is for cash, and it consistently makes for more interesting television in my experience. Shorthanded (six-person) cash games are common online, wouldn't require any changes to their set, and would have some additional advantages:
- They wouldn't have to deal with the variable lengths of tournaments, and could just shoot enough of each table to fill up one week of programs, showing every hand played.
- When the current tournaments get down to the last day or two I find them much less interesting than the rest of the week. Cash games never get shorthanded or shortstacked, so they'd be equally interesting for every show.
Another weak spot is the show's display of hole-card graphics. They're shown for too short a time (sometimes even two sets at a time), and too much of that screen time is used for a transition effect. The hole card graphics are stacked one on top of the other on the lower left of the screen, which means that the order of action postflop is impossible to figure out (it depends on the positions of the players that saw the flop). The order of action should be consistently in one direction, and they need to add position indicators to the graphics (e.g. showing which players are in the blinds and on the button). The best practice in this area is to arrange the hole cards around the edges of the screen, with the blinds at the top and the button on the left side so the order of action is always clockwise (corresponding to the action on the poker table). Poker After Dark should also display all the hole cards at the beginning of the hand, rather than as the players act. This method, used on Poker Dome among other shows, is a huge improvement over showing hole cards one at a time: Poker Dome taught me an incredible amount about short-handed play because of it.
Like all poker shows, Poker After Dark could use more onscreen information. They don't even usually show win percentages. I'd like to see draws/outs, odds, pot odds, and stack sizes. With good onscreen graphics, a play-by-play announcer becomes unnecessary. Unless they're going to provide a top-flight analyst like Phil Gordon, I think they should eliminate the announcer and just give us better onscreen graphics. That would have the additional benefit of allowing us to hear the table talk. Once recently I remember being frustrated that Ali Nejad was covering up the table talk to give us the chip count at the same time as it was displayed onscreen (a graphic that they always show for too short a time).
Some shows are a lot better than others at making the table talk easy to hear. On Celebrity Poker Showdown I could always easily hear the players, the tournament director doing play-by-play, and two announcers. The World Poker Tour does a good job in this area as well. Shows by POKER-PROductions (e.g. this and High Stakes Poker), on the other hand, have difficulty with this. I'm not sure what the difference is, but I notice people talking over one another, significant background noise, and loud chip noises.
They waste time with non-poker content that I think should be used to show us more hands: every show has an opening credits sequence, scenes from last time, player introductions, and scenes from the upcoming episode. I'd like to see all those segments eliminated, though it might be worthwhile to keep the player introductions for the first show of the week (I watch enough poker on TV to know who all the players are anyway). Even Shana's interviews are usually a waste of time in my opinion. Sure, she looks terrific when she dresses well (too infrequently unfortunately), but most of the interviews have no valuable content and are sometimes uncomfortable. There are exceptions: John Juanda telling us how he was going to exploit David Williams's play, then watching Juanda do it, was brilliant; and I'll listen to anything Barry Greenstein has to say. We might be best served by continuing to film the interviews but leaving the majority of them on the cutting-room floor. Sometimes I've seen Shana conduct interviews during the middle of a big hand, as well, which there's no excuse for.
I still find Poker After Dark's use of cash in a tournament offensive, and encourage players on the show to use it as cash (e.g. tipping the cocktail waitress with it) until the producers start using tournament chips. Pretending that the show is filmed at night over a week is also offensive, but I was pleased to notice some players refusing to go along with that farce on recent shows. I also still think that the producers encourage the players to gab it up, occasionally producing uncomfortable or embarrassing results. Let the players be themselves!
I've only watched the weekend Director's Cut episodes a few times, and I don't find them worth watching. Perhaps the producers could change the format of that show to cover the entire tournament in an hour. I don't claim to know what anyone other than me likes, but there is common speculation that many potential poker viewers are bored by seeing a lot of hands (like we see on the weekday Poker After Dark shows) and are more interested in seeing just a few big hands (as shown on most poker shows). Showing the same tournament both ways would provide a useful test of the theory that there are significant groups with such opposite preferences.
Showing most of the hands played makes Poker After Dark the only show on US TV where we can see how our favorite pros actually play. The show could be improved in a lot of ways, but I find it to be the most compelling poker on TV right now.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Streaming Video To Become More Competitive With TV and Downloaded Video
TechCrunch reports: Full-screen, broadcast-quality video streams... is quickly coming to the Web. Brightcove will soon be offering such streams to its video publishers using BitTorrent DNA. But the real threat... will be coming from Adobe and its ubiquitous Flash player.
Sometime in the next few months, Adobe is expected to incorporate the H.264 codec in all Flash players with the general release of Flash Player 9. You can already download a beta version from Adobe Labs. The H.264 codec is part of MPEG-4 and is the codec that Apple uses to compress all of the video downloads on iTunes. Once H.264 is part of Flash, the quality of streaming video on the Web will roughly double at current bandwidth speeds. That means YouTube videos will look twice as good—and those will likely remain on the low end in quality.
Currently, downloading torrents is by far the best way to watch shows that your cable or satellite system doesn't carry. Although there are already a few high quality streams available (e.g. PokerStars's EPT broadcasts), too often they are low quality, unreliable, and chop shows into segments. It's only a matter of time, however, until streaming video replaces downloaded and the internet replaces broadcast, cable, and satellite as a distribution method.
Sometime in the next few months, Adobe is expected to incorporate the H.264 codec in all Flash players with the general release of Flash Player 9. You can already download a beta version from Adobe Labs. The H.264 codec is part of MPEG-4 and is the codec that Apple uses to compress all of the video downloads on iTunes. Once H.264 is part of Flash, the quality of streaming video on the Web will roughly double at current bandwidth speeds. That means YouTube videos will look twice as good—and those will likely remain on the low end in quality.
Currently, downloading torrents is by far the best way to watch shows that your cable or satellite system doesn't carry. Although there are already a few high quality streams available (e.g. PokerStars's EPT broadcasts), too often they are low quality, unreliable, and chop shows into segments. It's only a matter of time, however, until streaming video replaces downloaded and the internet replaces broadcast, cable, and satellite as a distribution method.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Season Three Of Poker After Dark Filming
Season three of Poker After Dark will begin filming this Sunday at the South Point. 10 weeks of shows will be produced and they will air starting in January 2008. According to Jeff Haney themes include couples who are married or dating and players known for wearing cowboy hats.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Main Event Final Table; Poker After Dark Ups the Ante
Next week's Poker After Dark is a high-stakes version of the normal show: the buyin is $50,000, and the winner gets $300,000. The players are David Benyamine, Allen Cunningham, Jennifer Harman, Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, and Eli Elezra. That sounds like a great lineup: I consider Benyamine, Ivey, and Greenstein to be among the 10 best poker players in the world; Allen Cunningham is probably among the 10 best tournament players in the world; and I'd say Jennifer Harman is the best female player in the world. Eli's no slouch either.
ESPN is broadcasting the final table of the Main Event on Tuesday. After that they'll start coverage of the $50,000 HORSE event.
EPT Live will provide streaming coverage of the final two days of the EPT Baden event on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.
ESPN is broadcasting the final table of the Main Event on Tuesday. After that they'll start coverage of the $50,000 HORSE event.
EPT Live will provide streaming coverage of the final two days of the EPT Baden event on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.
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