There is opportunity for chess on TV if it is blitz.

Blitz makes for exciting chess and provides many opportunities for tactical surprises. I think many would watch a blitz game.

Definitely I think people would tune in to watch Paris Hilton play Snoop Dog in a game of chess.

The main focus would be on the GM's and a digital board on screen with their verbal commentary but it would often go back to the actual board to capture banter etc..

They could have a GM assistant that they could call in a certain number of times to give some strategic (love to Kurokug) counsel. And then afterwards the post-mortem with the comments by the celebrities juxtaposed with the comments by the GM's might yield some memorable moments. I guess the GM assistant would be their coach for a few days (weeks?) beforehand so there would be the element of rivalry with the two GM'S pitting their "students" against eachother.

Or maybe the women from The View could play a 2 on 2 match against eachother.

Actually, forget that last one...

I love chess, I am addicted to it, I spend my time and money on it, but I would NOT be interested in chess on tv. I did watch some of the Kaspy vs Virtual Fritz match, but even then, it's not something it put on my schedule of things to watch. Watching chess games is rather boring honestly. What would have some success would be a show that was formatted as a chess school, perhaps through public broadcasting.

I think that would be a game of total blunders!

For a chess site, I'm really surprised that there is so much disinterest in chess on TV. Any of you guys ever watch TLC? They have shows about buying a home, dudes who run a tattoo parlour, what clothes to wear, how to save money, fat people trying to lose weight, etc. Cooking shows, handyman shows, even competitions between celebrity skaters and dancers are popular now on TV.

There's a lot of bad TV out there. A chess program, if done right, couldn't be any worse.

All of those other things are fairly widely understood or are quickly understandable.  A show about chess would require a certain level of knowledge of the game and that really limits the potential audience.

As a show that would be entertaining to chess players I'm sure it could be done.  As a show that turns a profit I have serious doubts.

When was the last time you saw something intellectually intriguing on tv?

And I don't mean hunting down the history channel either.

Anyway, chess would just be boring to watch. If you can't play, it'll go way over your head.

It's much easier to make reality tv.

A reality show about chess players' lives would be nice seeing as you don't hear much about them unless they're winning somthing... Follow them to tournaments and stuff.  

blitz chess on tv i would totally watch. i'd even watch condensed versions of 3+ hour GM games.

i would also watch these online if they were available.

It would be nice but the fact is that it's not good viewing, be glad of this people.  If Chess got big on TV then corruption would follow.  Just like any popular sport. 

Chess is right where it should be. 

There are a lot of problems with showing chess on tv. The interesting thing about watching chess is the analysis. You can get some good analysis from a quality commentator, but unless the GM's are commenting on their own games then the true thought behind the moves is not known. This makes watching live chess matches less "pure" in my opinion. If the matches were not aired live then the fans would already know the results so there may be less interest in the games.

I think it is definitely a difficult thing to get right, but I would watch it anyway. The real problem is that most people in the world are not me and you and would have no interest whatsoever in watching a chess match unless it had the political storyline of something like Fischer-Spasky.

You can go to chessbase.com  and see some of the recently completed blitz games between the top players in the world, I like watching them play blitz more than classic games.

There are also tons of youtube videos of decent players analyzing live blitz games as well as analyzing games afterwards. The user Kingscrusher comes to mind. Another user named krakkaskak (sp?) made some great videos of his dutch system, which he called "the polar bear system." He doesn't make videos anymore as far as I know, but his old ones are great.