Olympics on NBC

NBC Sports' coverage of the Olympic Games consists of broadcasts on the various networks of NBC Universal in the United States, including the NBC broadcast network, Spanish language network Telemundo, and many of the company's cable networks.

The telecast runs for 17 days primarily in the evening and weekend afternoons on NBC, with varying times on the other networks (after the close of the stock market day on CNBC for instance, the early mornings on MSNBC, and overnights on the USA Network). The Winter Olympic Games^[1] are normally televised in February in non-leap, even years, next in 2014. The Summer Olympic Games^[2] are normally televised in August in leap years, next in 2012.

The on-air title of the telecasts, as typically announced at the start of each broadcast and during sponsor billboards, is always the official name of the games in question, e.g. The Games of the XXIX Olympiad for the 2008 summer games. However, promotional logos may reflect the more common location-and-year name format, e.g. "Beijing 2008".

History

Early coverage

1964 Summer Olympics

NBC made their Olympic television debut when they showed the 1964 Summer Olympics from Tokyo. They did this with the aid of the Syncom 3 satellite for direct broadcasts. When NBC televised the opening ceremonies of the 1964 Summer Olympics, it was the first color broadcast televised live via satellite.^[3]

The Olympic competition itself was broadcast in black-and-white. Thanks to the Syncom 3 satellite, a daily highlights package could be seen a few hours after the events took place; otherwise, film canisters were flown across the Pacific Ocean and were broadcast to American viewers the following day.^[4]

Serving as anchor was Bill Henry, then NBC News Tokyo bureau chief, who had extensive experience in both print and broadcast news. Play-by-play commentators included Bud Palmer and Jim Simpson.

1972 Winter Olympics

Meanwhile, NBC first televised the Winter Olympic Games in 1972.^[5] Anchored by Curt Gowdy, much of the coverage actually was broadcast live since alpine skiing and long track speed skating were held in the morning, which translated to prime-time on the U.S. East Coast. A young sportscaster making his network television debut at Sapporo was a 26-year-old Al Michaels, who did play-by-play of hockey. Eight years later, he would call the famous 1980 "Miracle On Ice" at that year's Winter Games in Lake Placid for ABC Sports.

1980 Summer Olympic boycott

NBC had won the U.S. broadcast rights for the 1980 Summer Olympics, but when the United States Olympic Committee kept U.S. athletes home to honor the boycott announced by President Jimmy Carter, the telecasts were greatly scaled back. In the end, what had been 150 hours of scheduled coverage, shrunk to just a few hours. Highlights were fed to local NBC stations for use on local newscasts. Many affiliates however, refused to show the Olympic highlights on their local news. They also refused to clear airtime for the few hours of coverage NBC did present.

NBC's extensive coverage was canceled before a prime time anchor had been named; it was said that Nightly News anchorman John Chancellor (a former NBC Moscow bueau chief) along with sportscasters Bryant Gumbel and Dick Enberg were reportedly being considered for the prime time studio host role.

1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul

NBC then bid for, and won, the rights to show the 1988 Summer Olympics. Network officials convinced the organizers in Seoul to stage most of its gold-medal finals in the afternoon, which is prime time of the previous night in the U.S. The Today Show's Bryant Gumbel was the prime time host^[6] that year; Bob Costas hosted the late-night show while Jane Pauley was one of the hosts of early-morning coverage.

Gumbel and Dick Enberg were co-hosts for the opening and closing ceremonies.

A curious result was that, since in the United States the 1988 NFL season had just started, NBC would plug the holes (primarily play-by-play broadcasters) with well-known older broadcasters such as Curt Gowdy, Ray Scott and Merle Harmon, among others.

Breaking news and 1992 and 1996 Summer Olympics

Just as his mentor Roone Arledge had before over at ABC, Dick Ebersol, who took over NBC Sports in 1989, decided to make the Olympics a staple of his network's sports television schedule. NBC continued its Summer Games coverage into the decade, with both the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona and the 1996 Summer Games^[7][8] in Atlanta. And as with Arledge (who had to deal with the Munich massacre during the 1972 Summer Games), Ebersol had to deal with breaking news during the Games. During the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996, NBC suspended its coverage of a volleyball game and broadcast the news for several hours commercial-free. Bob Costas made his debut as prime time host in 1992. Costas had previously, hosted the late night coverage in Seoul.

Cable and satellite services become involved

To help defray the increasing costs of broadcast rights, NBC turned to cable and satellite services for additional coverage. In 1992, NBC teamed up with Cablevision for the Triplecast, which provided three channels of pay-per-view telecasts that supplemented NBC's regular coverage. However, NBC lost over $100 million, the package was dropped, and there was no supplemental coverage from Atlanta.

Major storylines in the first decade of the 21st century

Coverage in the first decade of the 21st century revolved around two major storylines:

• NBC became the sole U.S. rights holder for the Olympic Games for the entire decade and beyond. The network could rightly boast of being "America's Olympic Network" as it made the longest and most expensive commitment ever since the Olympics were first presented on TV. For the 1996 Summer Games, and all Games from 2000 to 2008, NBC paid a total of $3.5 billion, mostly to the International Olympic Committee but also to the USOC and local organizers. In 2008, NBC paid another $2.2 billion to purchase the rights to the 2010 Winter Olympics and 2012 Summer Olympics^[9] but lost $223 million on the 2010 broadcasts.^[10]

• The rise of various media platforms extended the reach and availability of Games coverage. NBC returned to supplemental cable/satellite coverage in 2000, with some events on CNBC and MSNBC. In 2004, it added USA Network, Bravo, and Telemundo, all of which parent company NBC Universal had acquired earlier in the decade. In 2006, Universal HD was added to the list of channels carrying the Games. Finally, in 2008, events were streamed live for the first time on the Internet through the website NBCOlympics.com (Also in 2008, Oxygen replaced Bravo as a supplemental network, and NBC launched high-definition channels dedicated to the basketball and soccer competitions). The 2010 Games debuted digital subchannel Universal Sports carrying analysis programs about events, while Oxygen and Bravo were completely excluded to maintain their schedules.

New NBCUniversal/Comcast coverage

With Comcast taking over NBCUniversal many people thought they would not bid for the television rights for the next Olympics, after losing money from the 2010 Olympics. Also Dick Ebersol left as NBC sports chairman, who lead NBC for overbidding in the last two Olympics. However it was announced on June 6, 2011 that NBCUniversal had won the television rights for the 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020 Olympics, beating out ESPN/ABC and Fox. The entire package for the rights was $4.38 billion, making it the most expensive television rights deal in Olympic history. NBC paid $775 million for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and $1.23 billion for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Also NBC paid $963 million for the 2018 Olympics to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea and $1.45 billion for the 2020 Olympics, currently only Rome has announced a bid. NBC has announced that it will begin airing all of the events live on TV or either the internet.^[11][12]

Hours of coverage

Year	Host	Hours of Coverage	Main article
1964 Summer	Tokyo, Japan	45 minutes daily and 12 hours overall.[13]
1972 Winter	Sapporo, Japan	37[13]
1980 Summer	Moscow, USSR	primarily highlights[13]
1988 Summer	Seoul, South Korea	179.5[14]
1992 Summer	Barcelona, Spain	161[15] + 1080 on Triplecast[16]
1996 Summer	Atlanta, Georgia	171[17]
2000 Summer	Sydney, Australia	441.5[17]
2002 Winter	Salt Lake City, Utah	375.5[18][19]
2004 Summer	Athens, Greece	1210[17][20]
2006 Winter	Torino, Italy	416[18][21]
2008 Summer	Beijing, China	3600[14]	2008 Summer Olympics on NBC
2010 Winter	Vancouver, Canada	835[22]

Traditionally, NBC has primarily televised marquee sports in its Olympic coverage. When the network added coverage on its cable partners in 2000, it allowed them to televise other sports. 2004 marked the first year that they televised all 28 sports in the Summer Games.^[23] In 2008, aided with online streaming, NBC aired many of the events held at the summer games live.

Commentators

Main article: Olympics on NBC commentators

Music

The main theme of the Olympic coverage is "Bugler's Dream," composed by Leo Arnaud. It debuted on ABC in 1964 for that year's Winter Games in Innsbruck, was used for all ten Olympics carried by that network, and was first used by NBC in 1992, when NBC bought the performance rights and commissioned its own version. Other songs used on NBC include compositions from John Williams (including "Olympic Fanfare and Theme", "The Olympic Spirit", "Summon the Heroes", and "Call of the Champions"), David Arkenstone, and John Tesh (whose "Roundball Rock", best remembered as the theme for NBC's NBA coverage during the 1990s and early 2000s, was added to the basketball coverage in 2008). During the announcements of upcoming events, NBC has used the Randy Edelman composed theme song from the short-lived Fox TV series The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. The theme was also used for NBC's Major League Baseball coverage from the start of the 1996 postseason through the 1998 All-Star Game.

Criticism

Tape delay

Despite the 2010 Winter Olympics being held in Vancouver, three hours behind New York, and in all of their previous Olympic coverages, NBC has delayed the broadcast of higher-profile events held during the day to air in prime time. As a result, almost none of the popular alpine events were shown live.^[24] Executives say this is done because they see better Nielsen ratings with coverage in the evening hours. Nevertheless, the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver are assumed to be a financial disaster for NBC, as the network is expecting to lose about $200 million after overpaying for broadcasting rights.^[25] However, the tape delay practice even for major events is increasingly frustrating with viewers when considering the increased usage of social networking and Web sites (including the official Vancouver 2010 site and NBC's Olympic website) posting results in real time.^[26] This especially holds true for viewers in the Pacific, Mountain, Hawaii, and Alaska time zones, where events are delayed even further by three to six hours or more, and also holds true for events shown live for the East Coast, with very few exceptions.^[27]

As a result, these practices has spawned outrage across the internet and even raising concerns from politicians.^[28] This has also added to NBC's very negative reputation in recent times among television viewers, along with Jeff Zucker's management and the 2010 Tonight Show conflict.^[29] NBC executives are frequently referred to as the "undertakers" of Olympic live coverage.

In the past, American viewers who lived close to the Canadian border were able to get around waiting for NBC to air an event by watching Olympic coverage on CBC Television. However, starting with the 2010 games, rights in Canada moved over to CTV, which is not available on many northern U.S. cable systems due to primetime program redundancy with the American networks.^[30]

It is announced that NBC will begin to cover all of the Olympics live on either TV or the Internet. However, it is unknown if it will begin the live coverage for the 2012 Olympics or 2014 Olympics.

2010 Closing Ceremonies

During the closing ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, NBC went into an intermission of coverage at the end of the cultural section at 10:30 pm EST, to broadcast the debut of The Marriage Ref, and broadcast the remaining portion of the ceremonies on tape delay at 11:35 pm EST after late local news.^[31] This spawned outbursts from upset viewers, especially on Twitter.^[32]

During the remaining portion after the "intermission", several performances including Francophone Quebec singer, Garou, was not shown at all even though several other countries broadcast the performance in full. In the US three minutes of commercials were shown in place of his performance.^[33] He sang "Un peu plus haut, un peu plus loin" (A Little Higher, A Little Further),^[34] written by Jean-Pierre Ferland.

See also

• Olympics on ABC
• Olympics on CBS
• Olympics on TNT
• Olympics on television

Notes

1. ^ Winter Olympics Games on NBC - Google Search (timeline)
2. ^ Summer Olympic Games on NBC - Google Search (timeline)
3. ^ Television Sports Milestones: A Chronology of an Industry
4. ^ "Tokyo 1964: A tough job, but...". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2009. http://archives.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/clips/7327/. Retrieved 2010-02-17. 
5. ^ Olympics and Television
6. ^ Bryant Gumbel, NBC's Olympic host, is alone at the top—all alone with the memory of his father
7. ^ Johnson, William Oscar; Taaffe, William (December 26, 1988). "A Whole New Game". Sports Illustrated. http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/printThis?clickMap=printThis&fb=Y&url=http%3A//sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1068137/index.htm&title=Two%20megabuck%20TV%20deals%20may%20change%20the%20face%20of%20baseball%20-%2012.26.88%20-%20SI%20Vault&random=0.05795234773787633&partnerID=289881&expire=. 
8. ^ Johnson, William Oscar (December 12, 1988). "A Golden Opportunity". Sports Illustrated. http://cnnsi.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=NBC+surprised+everyone%2C+including+its+own+staff%2C+by+-+12.12.88+-+SI+Vault&expire=&urlID=417903617&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsportsillustrated.cnn.com%2Fvault%2Farticle%2Fmagazine%2FMAG1068078%2Findex.htm&partnerID=289881. 
9. ^ "Television Rights." ESPN Sports Almanac 2008, page 609
10. ^ "NBC posts $223 million 1Q loss on Winter Olympics". Associated Press. 2010-04-17. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i2G89IcCAjO8dSVB8NuOzE35eMCwD9F4CCFO0. Retrieved 2010-04-21. 
11. ^ TV by the Numbers. 2011-06-07. http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/06/07/report-nbc-wins-latest-olympics-tv-rights-bid/94902/. Retrieved 2011-06-07. 
12. ^ Ad Week. 2011-06-07. http://www.adweek.com/news/television/update-nbc-bids-438-billion-olympic-gold-132319. Retrieved 2011-06-07. 
13. ^ ^{a b c} The World Comes Together in Your Living Room: The Olympics on TV
14. ^ ^{a b} Eskenazi, Gerald (September 18, 1988). "THE SEOUL OLYMPICS: TV Sports; NBC's Coverage Captures the Color, but Not the Fun". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/18/sports/the-seoul-olympics-tv-sports-nbc-s-coverage-captures-the-color-but-not-the-fun.html?pagewanted=print. 
15. ^ Hiestand, Michael; Martzke, Rudy (April 22, 2003). "Bidding for the Olympics on TV". USA Today (USAToday.com). http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2003-04-21-tv-rights_x.htm. 
16. ^ "Nbc's Olympian Gamble". Newsweek. January 13, 1992. http://www.newsweek.com/id/116901/output/print. 
17. ^ ^{a b c} NBC's Olympic Coverage from Athens
18. ^ ^{a b} NBC ANNOUNCES UNPRECEDENTED COVERAGE OF THE 2006 TORINO OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES
19. ^ Includes 207 hours on CNBC and MSNBC
20. ^ Includes 226 hours on NBC, 133.5 hours on MSNBC, 111 hours on CNBC, 122 hours on Bravo, 49 hours on USA and 169.5 hours on Telemundo
21. ^ Includes 182.5 hours on NBC and 233.5 hours on CNBC, MSNBC and USA
22. ^ "NBC Universal Announces Coverage Plans for 2010 Winter Olympics". Fang's Bites. 2010-01-14. http://fangsbites.com/2010/01/nbc-universal-announces-coverage-plans-for-2010-winter-olympics/. 
23. ^ Volleyball Well Represented by NBC's Around-the-Clock Olympic TV Coverage
24. ^ "NBC's coverage of Olympics misses the thrill". Salt Lake Tribune. 2010-02-20. http://www.sltrib.com/sports/ci_14440839. 
25. ^ "Vancouver Olympics Coverage Requires Fewer Tape Delays, Except for West Coast Viewers". The Wall Street Journal. 2010-02-11. http://online.wsj.com/articleSB20001424052748703455804575057681187953898.html. ^{[dead link]}
26. ^ "Tape Delay an Olympic Dilemma". newser. 2010-02-11. http://www.newser.com/story/80659/tape-delay-an-olympic-dilemma.html. 
27. ^ Judd, Ron (2010-01-16). "NBC's 'live' Olympic coverage is anything but for West Coast viewers". Seattle Times Newspaper. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/ronjudd/2010814653_judd17.html. 
28. ^ "Even Senators Hated NBC Universal's Olympic Coverage". techdirt. 2010-03-01. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100301/0252398339.shtml. 
29. ^ Hall, Spencer (2010-02-16). "NBC Olympics Coverage, Making Sports Fans Hate The Network More Than Ever". SB Nation. http://www.sbnation.com/2010/2/16/1312659/nbc-olympics-coverage-is-horrible-and-you-hate-them-for-it. 
30. ^ Gerstner, Joanne T. (2010-02-20). "Canadian TV Switch Displeases Americans". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/sports/olympics/21cbc.html?ref=olympics&pagewanted=print. 
31. ^ "Live Updates From Closing Ceremony". The New York Times. February 28, 2010. http://vancouver2010.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/live-updates-from-closing-ceremony/?ref=olympics. 
32. ^ Canadian Press (February 28, 2010). "US viewers tweet up a storm after NBC cuts Olympic closing ceremonies show". Winnipeg Free Press. http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/olympics/us-viewers-tweet-up-a-storm-after-nbc-cuts-olympic-closing-ceremonies-show-85791672.html. 
33. ^ "Garou boudé par les États-Unis". TVA. 2010-02-18. http://lcn.canoe.ca/lcn/artsetspectacles/general/archives/2010/02/20100218-165135.html. 
34. ^ Yahoo! Babelfish translation

References

• NBC Olympics website
  • NBC Olympics Prime Time Challenge
• Ebersol Says He's Ready For Pay-Per-View Time
• NBC has company in the Olympic TV business
• NBC's Bid For TV Glory
• Olympics on TV: All Games all the time
• TV Theme - Olympic Spirit by Boston Pops Orchestra 1988.wav
  • TV Theme - Olympics, Atlanta Theme by John Williams 1996.wav
  • TV Theme - Olympics, Promo NBC Sports 1988.wav
  • TV Theme - Olympics, Sydney Opening Ceremony - The Man From Snowy River (Olympic Version).wav
• Olympic Commentators by Event History
• InBaseline
  • 1988 Summer Olympic Games
  • The 1992 Summer Olympics
  • The 1996 Summer Olympics
  • 2000 Olympic Games
  • 2002 Olympic Winter Games
• Logos of Olympic Broadcasters - Part 2: 1960s
  • Logos of Olympic Broadcasters - Part 3: 1970s
  • Logos of Olympic Broadcasters - Part 4: 1980s
  • Logos of Olympic Broadcasters - Part 5: 1990s
  • Logos of Olympic Broadcasters - Part 6: 2000s and Beyond