The first live telecast of the Olympics on American television[1][2] was from the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California (now Olympic Valley). CBS paid $50,000 to obtain the broadcast rights. Walter Cronkite[3] hosted the telecasts, anchoring on-site from Squaw Valley. With Squaw Valley connected to the network lines, some events were broadcast live while the remainder of the network's coverage was of events shown on the same day they took place. During the games, officials asked Tony Verna, one of the members of the production staff, if it could use its videotape equipment to determine whether or not a slalom skier missed a gate. Verna then returned to CBS headquarters in New York City and developed the first instant replay system, which debuted at the Army–Navy football game in 1963. The event in Squaw Valley was the last time CBS would carry a Winter Olympics until 1992.
Later that year, CBS aired the 1960 Summer Olympics from Rome, the only time that CBS has ever televised a Summer Games event. The network carried about 20 hours of coverage of such events as track and field and swimming.[4] Because communications satellites, which would have provided direct transmissions between the United States and Italy, were not yet available, production staff members fed footage from Rome to London, re-recorded it on tape there, and then the tapes were flown to CBS headquarters in New York (or a mobile unit parked at Idelwild Airport in New York, to lessen the time that transporting videotapes into the city would take) for later telecast.
Despite this, at least some of the events, especially those held in the morning and early-afternoon (local time in Rome), actually aired in the United States the same day they took place (often during a half-hour late-night show that aired from 11:15 to 11:45p.m. Eastern Time). Jim McKay, then a relatively unknown radio and television personality, was the host, anchoring not from Rome, but from the CBS studios in New York City.[5]
1990s coverage
Although CBS bid on the rights to several Olympics in the 1970s and 1980s, CBS was outbid by rivals NBC and ABC. When the 1990s approached, CBS won the rights to three consecutive Winter Games: 1992,[6]1994 and 1998.
On May 24, 1988,[7] CBS won the broadcasting rights to the 1992 Winter Olympics from Albertville, France after bidding around $243 million.[8][9] On August 23, 1989,[10] CBS also won the rights to broadcast the 1994 Winter Olympics from Lillehammer, Norway after bidding $300 million.[11] Finally, on January 18, 1994,[12] won the rights to broadcast the 1998 Winter Olympics from Nagano, Japan, after paying roughly $375 million.[13]
CBS provided some live coverage of the 1992 Games in Albertville, France on weekend mornings and afternoons (and on the last Friday morning (Eastern Time) of the Games to show live the men's ice hockey semifinal between the United States and Unified Team, but most of the events (and all of the prime time coverage) were broadcast by CBS on tape delay, owing to the time difference between the United States and Europe. A similar format was used two years later in 1994 when the Winter Games adopted a new schedule, midway between the four-year Summer Games cycle, instead of in the same year as the Summer Olympics.
The 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway saw the highest nighttime ratings in the history of American Olympic telecasts, as a result of the scandal in which associates of figure skater Tonya Harding attacked Nancy Kerrigan and the media frenzy that followed. The short program in women's figure skating, which aired on February 23 is, as of 2008[update], the sixth-highest rated prime time television program in American history. It had a rating of 48.5 and a share of 64 (meaning 48.5% of all television sets in the U.S. and 64% of all television sets turned on were tuned in to CBS). The long program two days later had a rating of 44.1 and another 64 share; it ranks 32nd.[14] Both the short and long programs were shown on tape delay during prime time about six or so hours after the events had taken place.
Also contributing to the huge ratings in 1994 were a surprise gold medal by American skier Tommy Moe, as well as Dan Jansen's speed skating gold medal win, and, on the final morning (Eastern Time) of the Games, a dramatic championship game in men's hockey between Sweden and Canada, won by Sweden in a shootout. When the construction of the Lysgårdsbakken jumping hills started in 1992, the hills had to be moved some meters north so that television broadcasters (including CBS) could get the best pictures available from their pre-chosen location.
The affiliation switches that followed the 1994 games resulted in several CBS affiliates losing their network affiliation to Fox and NBC, the latter of which began broadcasting the Winter Olympics in 2002. The affiliation deal between CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting resulted in WBAL-TV, WHDH and WCAU switching to NBC in 1995, one year before those stations aired the 1996 games.
The 1998 Winter Games[15] in Nagano, Japan did feature some live prime time coverage in the Eastern and Central Time Zones (the Opening Ceremony and some alpine skiing events), since these events were being held in the morning local time in Japan, which corresponded to the prime time slot in the United States. Much of the men's and women's hockey action was held in the early afternoon (during late night in the Eastern Time Zone, allowing again for live broadcasts at 12:30a.m. Eastern Time), however figure skating was shown on delay about 20 hours after the competitions took place so they could air in prime time.
Greg Gumbel is an American television sportscaster. He is best known for his various assignments for CBS Sports. The older brother of news and sportscaster Bryant Gumbel, he became the first African-American announcer to call play-by-play of a major sports championship in the United States when he announced Super Bowl XXXV for the CBS network in 2001. Gumbel is currently the studio host for CBS' men's college basketball coverage and was a play-by-play broadcaster for the NFL on CBS until 2023.
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NBC Olympics is the commercial name for the NBC Sports-produced broadcasts of the Summer and Winter Olympic Games as shown in the United States on NBCUniversal platforms. They include the NBC broadcast network and many of the company's cable networks; Spanish language network Telemundo; and streaming on the NBC Sports app, NBCOlympics.com, and Peacock. The event telecasts during the Olympics have aired primarily in the evening and on weekend afternoons on NBC, and varying times on its cable networks. Additional live coverage is available on the aforementioned streaming platforms.
The Olympic Games aired in the United States on the broadcast network ABC during the 1960s to the 1980s. ABC first televised the Winter Olympic Games in 1964, and the Summer Olympic Games in 1968. ABC last televised the Summer Olympics in 1984 and Winter Olympics in 1988.
The Olympic Games have been broadcast on television since the 1936 Summer Olympics.
The American cable channel TNT served as cable partner for the CBS broadcast television network during the 1992, 1994, and 1998 Winter Olympic Games, supplementing Olympics coverage in the United States.
The Olympic Games have been televised in the United States since 1960. It has become one of the most popular programs on USA television every four and then two years. The Olympics has been exclusively broadcast on NBC and NBCUniversal's TV networks in the United States since 1988 for the Summer Olympics and 2002 for the Winter Olympics. American television companies are one of the major sources of revenue for the IOC.
The following is a list of commentators to be featured in CBS' television broadcasts of the Olympic Games. CBS was the very first television network in the United States to broadcast the Olympics, beginning with the 1960 Winter Games from Squaw Valley, California.
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Andrea Joyce Kuslits, better known as Andrea Joyce, is an American sportscaster who works for NBC Sports after working 10 years with CBS Sports.
Golf telecasts have aired on NBC since 1954, with some of its earliest telecasts having included the 1954 U.S. Open, and the first televised coverage of the Ryder Cup in 1959.
The broadcasts of Summer and Winter Olympic Games produced by CBC Sports are shown on CBC Television and heard on the CBC's radio networks in Canada. The CBC was the broadcaster of the 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024 Olympics.
The following is a list of commentators to be featured in CBC Television's Olympic Games coverage.
Established in 2007, Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium was a joint venture set up by Canadian media companies Bell Media and Rogers Media to produce the Canadian broadcasts of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England, as well as the two corresponding Paralympic Games. Bell owned 80% of the joint venture, and Rogers owned 20%.
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