Due to Magnus Carlsen, chess has had a major boost here in Norway. His major tournaments are covered in detail on TV with commentary by chess experts, which makes it quite approachable and exciting to watch.
Given the inevitable slow parts of the game, the experts have time to explain the position on the board, and show how the variations can play out etc. They've somehow managed to turn chess into a spectator sport.
If per chance they're not geoblocking it, you can get a flavor of it here[1].
Currently there's the Champions Chess Tour (online), which gets several hours of coverage each day they play.
Not just Norway! Magnus is kind of charismatic and very online. Great champion in terms of promoting the game.
He, and other streamer GMs like Naka in the US and others have really made chess streaming. Televised tournament play by day, lichess hyper bullet matches by night.
As an aside, for very good analysis of current Chess games (as well as older sagas around certain legends of the game), I heartily recommend checking out agadmator's Youtube channel[1].
I thoroughly enjoy Stjepan Tomic's channel "Hanging pawns" (on YouTube) for more detailed analyses than Agadmator. Videos are long but excellent and (i find it an advantage that) he doesn't go with the latest hypes around chess only (i.c. Queen's Gambit tv show)
> Agadmator is a very charismatic speaker but he does very little analysis.
It's good enough for the vast majority of chess players. Most chess players are casual fans. They aren't interested in deep analysis. And besides, if you want analysis, you wouldn't want a youtube channel but stockfish or other chess engines and work through it yourself.
> He mostly just moves the pieces and says the moves.
Not true. Sure he tells you the moves but he provides analysis for the good parts. He provides highlights which is what people want. Nobody is going to sit through a detailed analysis of an 8 hour game.
I've been watching high class matches on TV all my life, but usually with sound turned off. Comments are usually just computer analysis read out loud and background trivia like "he played similarly 2 years ago against XY" don't provide any benefit to me.
That's not how the Norwegian broadcasts have been, at all. Three different producers have been trying different stuff, and made it really approachable. First it was NRK (the national channel, like BBC for norway) and VG (the biggest newspaper) that both made their own live coverage. And now lately TV2 (biggest paid channel) is also in the game.
The coverages usually consist of a panel with a chess expert and a professional commentator/host, and then various other guests swapped each day. Mostly one celebrity and one other chess player. Then when a move is made it's discussed for some time and variants shown (not just computer analysis read out loud....), mostly by the professionals not looking at a computer. And then the guests can ask noob questions that's also what we viewers are wondering about ("why not just do X") and the chess experts show why.
Then it may be twenty minutes to the next move, so the discussion becomes like a chess-focused talk-show for some time until the next move is made. Or if it's speed chess, that kind of talk is in the 15-20 minutes between each game.
I'm actually going to miss having the speed chess world championship this christmas. Almost become a tradition watching that with the family.
That's how I know chess broadcasts. For me the signal to noise ratio is simply not favorable, I rarely learn from the comments because they cater all levels of players, not just mine. I found it more worthwhile to replay the moves at my computer and ask it: "why not just do x?".
Given the inevitable slow parts of the game, the experts have time to explain the position on the board, and show how the variations can play out etc. They've somehow managed to turn chess into a spectator sport.
If per chance they're not geoblocking it, you can get a flavor of it here[1].
Currently there's the Champions Chess Tour (online), which gets several hours of coverage each day they play.
[1]: https://www.tv2.no/sport/11799097/