What coverage, if any, of the 1948, 1952 and 1956 Olympics?

[BMR]

So my whole country is Olympic mad at the moment and it got me thinking.

What coverage, if any, did America get of the Olympics in the very early days of TV?

The 1948 Summer games were the first to be televised here (in the London area only). Did kinescopes of those games make it across to America?

What about 1952 or 1956? Obviously live coverage would have been out of the question, and still out of the question in 1960 in Rome, but did the networks show recordings?

 

[crainbebo]

I remember that CBS showed highlights shows during the 1960 Olympics, but not sure about '56...

-crainbebo

 

[tvnut]

Aside from newsreels (in movie theaters), nothing for 1948 or 1952, summer or winter.

I don't believe there was any U.S. coverage of the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina (though there was Italian TV coverage, presumably fed elsewhere via Eurovision). The 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne were filmed and presented in a syndicated series of shows (three or four, 30 minutes each) narrated by Tom Harmon; not sure now many stations carried the shows. Saw the info in a long-ago Advertising Age or Broadcasting magazine. In Australia, the Olympics were the impetus for television broadcasting after years of discussion on how to go about it. Stations in Melbourne and Sydney came on the air weeks before the Games began. Kinescopes exist, portions were seen in Bud Greenspan's 1970s series, "The Olympiad."

American television of the Olympics began in 1960 when CBS televised both the winter (Squaw Valley, Calif.) and summer games, the latter via videotapes flown from Rome to New York each day. The first satellite feeds were used in 1964, followed minutes later by complaints events were held on tape for prime-time broadcasts.

 

[BMR]

American television of the Olympics began in 1960 when CBS televised both the winter (Squaw Valley, Calif.) and summer games, the latter via videotapes flown from Rome to New York each day. The first satellite feeds were used in 1964, followed minutes later by complaints events were held on tape for prime-time broadcasts.

Thanks for that. I knew about 1964 and the syncom satellite coverage but wasn't sure if tapes were flown over in Summer 1960.

 

[newsmark]

followed minutes later by complaints events were held on tape for prime-time broadcasts.

;D

 

[tvnut]

American television of the Olympics began in 1960 when CBS televised both the winter (Squaw Valley, Calif.) and summer games, the latter via videotapes flown from Rome to New York each day. The first satellite feeds were used in 1964, followed minutes later by complaints events were held on tape for prime-time broadcasts.

Thanks for that. I knew about 1964 and the syncom satellite coverage but wasn't sure if tapes were flown over in Summer 1960.

Yep, the only way to do it in 1960. Most of ABC's coverage from Innsbruck in 1964 was also on tape, because Syncom III (available to NBC and CBC in the summer) wasn't off the launch pad yet. A few minutes of the Winter Olympics were fed via Early Bird, but mostly, it was ABC making a tape in Innsbruck, driving it to Munich, microwaving it to London for retaping, then flying it to New York. (That's how I remember reading it some years later, at least.) There was a spare tape in New York of a U.S.-Romania hockey game played (and shipped over) the day before the opening ceremony, to be used if something when wrong along the way, but the precarious thread never broke.

NBC got complaints from the west coast for tape-delaying the OC in 1964 (it was live after The Tonight Show ET/CT), and then from everyone for doing taped highlight shows each day, even though everything was satellite-fed.