BBC forced to apologise as snooker coverage switches to wildlife show | Other | Sport
The BBC were forced to cut to a wildlife show with coverage of the Snooker World Championships interrupted by technical issues at the Crucible. A post from the broadcaster read: “We are sorry for the break in this programme and are trying to correct the fault. Please stay with us we are experiencing some technical faults.”
A number of voiceovers followed before a wildlife show began on BBC Two, with it later revealed that a power issue at the Crucible was impacting the live coverage. The semi-final between Mark Allen and Wu Yize was in its third frame when the problem arose.
The pictures cut out at 7.51pm and were unavailable for 12 minutes before coverage resumed on the BBC iPlayer and TNT but issues on BBC Two remained. A few minutes later, their pictures returned with Hazel Irvine explaining the issue and revealing that Allen had won the third frame.
She said: “Welcome back to Sheffield and our apologies for the interruption to our evening at the Crucible in the second semi-final. We had a rather unexpected power issue. Nothing to do with not feeding the meter I assure you! We lost power but Mark Allen did not, he took frame three to get his semi-final campaign underway.”
The Northern Irishman also started the fourth frame on fire and eventually secured a break of 76 to level the clash. Pictures then returned to the studio with Irvine stating: “Well Mark Allen is back in this match and we are back as well after a slight unexpected hiatus.
“There was a big crash, bang and wallop in there and that sort of led to what we think is the power going off, however, in the middle of it all Mark Allen was amassing a break of 91. Steve Davis added: “It was obvious when the screens went blank in the room here that something happened, lights went off and cameras stopped filming.
“Mark Allen was aware something had happened and how good a performance to keep his standard up without getting confused by what was going on. Nobody knew what to do and amazingly it happened again but he still kept his composure.”
Allen got through an enthralling quarter-final against Barry Hawkins earlier in the week to reach his third World Championship semi-final. Yize beat Hossein Vafaei to get into the final four with John Higgins and Shaun Murphy as the other two players vying for a spot in Monday’s final.
