Olympics on United States television

The first telecast of the Olympics on American TV was from the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California. It was shown on CBS. 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.

Later that year, CBS showed the 1960 Summer Olympics from Rome. The network showed about 20 hours of coverage of track and field, swimming, and other sports. Because communications satellites, which would have provided direct transmissions between the United States and Italy, were not yet available, production staff members flew footage from Rome to CBS headquarters in New York for later telecast. Jim McKay, then a relatively unknown radio and TV personality, was the host.[2]

A different network showed the 1964 Winter Olympics: ABC. Roone Arledge won broadcast rights for his network and began a relationship with the Olympics that would last over two decades. The program used many of the same production staff from ABC's Wide World of Sports, as well as the same host, McKay, who moved to ABC in 1961. The following October, NBC showed the 1964 Summer Olympics from Tokyo, marking its Olympic TV debut. This time, NBC used the Syncom 3 satellite for direct broadcasts, with the opening ceremonies being broadcast live and in color (the first live color television program ever transmitted by satellite from overseas to the United States; the opening and closing ceremonies were the only portions of NBC's 1964 coverage from Tokyo seen in color). ABC showed both the 1968 Winter Olympics and the 1968 Summer Olympics; both of which were (with the exception of a handful of events) broadcast in color.

NBC showed the 1972 Winter Olympics from Sapporo, Japan, then ABC returned to carry the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. It was during the Summer Games that terrorists attacked the Olympic Village and killed 11 Israeli athletes. Although Chris Schenkel was the actual host of the Games that year, Arledge assigned the story to McKay largely because he was a local news anchor in Baltimore, Maryland prior to joining CBS (and later ABC). McKay was joined on set by ABC news correspondent (and former and future evening news anchor) Peter Jennings, and coverage continued for many hours until the outcome was known. McKay later won an Emmy Award for his coverage.[3]

By the time the 1976 edition came around, McKay was now installed at the host, a role he would play throughout the 1970s and '80s.

ABC aired the 1980 Winter Olympics, 1984 Winter and Summer, and the 1988 Winter Olympics. After that, the network, at the insistence of new owner Capital Cities Communications (much to the chagrin of Roone Arledge's successor at ABC Sports, Dennis Swanson), opted not to bid for the rights to show any future Games.

NBC had won the U.S. broadcast rights for the 1980 Summer Olympics, but when the United States announced its boycott in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the telecasts were cancelled.

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. Bryant Gumbel was the host that year.

Just as his mentor Roone Arledge had before, 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 Olympics in Atlanta. Previously hosting late night coverage in Seoul, Bob Costas made his debut, as primetime host, in Barcelona. It is a role that he held through the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

NBC's 1992 bid cost $401 million thinking that the rival networks would bid at least $400 million. In order to defray costs of airing the games, the network teamed up with Cablevision for the Triplecast. The service consisted of red, white, and blue channels that allowed the viewer to watch anything they wanted even before it aired in the network's primetime telecast. However, the service was a dismal failure losing $100 million and had only 200,000 subscribers. In addition, the main network's coverage was cannibalized to the extent it seemed that the main coverage was overproduced and that viewers knew some results about 10 hours before they were aired over the air on NBC. For Atlanta, NBC had no supplemental cable coverage.

And as with Arledge in Munich, Ebersol had to deal with breaking news during the Atlanta 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. Like ABC's 1972 Munich coverage, the main primetime host didn't cover the bombing. That role went to both Hannah Storm and Jim Lampley for the first half-hour before turning coverage over to NBC Nightly News host Tom Brokaw. Toward the end of the second hour of coverage, NBC had an exclusive as Atlanta TV affiliate WXIA was in the process of interviewing Janet Evans during the bombing.

As for the Winter Games, CBS had a similar sweep of coverage in the U.S. during the decade; it showed all three contests (1992, 1994, and 1998). The 1994 Games saw the nights with the highest ratings in the history of American Olympic telecasts, as a result of the scandal in which associates of Tonya Harding attacked Nancy Kerrigan and the media frenzy that followed, as well as Dan Jansen's speed skating gold medal win. The short program on February 23 is, as of 2008, the sixth-highest rated primetime TV program in American history. It had a rating of 48.5 and a share of 64. The long program two days later had a rating of 44.1 and another 64 share; it ranks 32nd.[4] Each telecast had a different primetime host(s): Paula Zahn and Tim McCarver in 1992, Greg Gumbel in 1994, and Jim Nantz in 1998.

As with NBC, CBS decided that it needed help to defray the increasing costs of broadcast rights. CBS's Winter Games coverage was shared with TNT, which aired events under the promotional slogan "The ultimate daytime drama." Nick Charles and Fred Hickman hosted the coverage from Turner's Atlanta studios in 1992 and 1994, while Jim Lampley was the host in 1998. While CBS had the top choice of events and had their own feed, TNT had to do with the world feed and aired their own events which was some sports CBS would not touch including Curling in 1998.

Also supplementing CBS's coverage was David Letterman as his show was Olympic themed in both 1994 and 1998 while the network aired the Olympics. A centerpiece of that coverage was nightly segments with his mother Dorothy, who was on-site at both the Lillehammer and Nagano Olympics.

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 boasted 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. To extend rights to the 2010 Winter Olympics and 2012 Summer Olympics, NBC then gave up another $2.2 billion.[5]
• 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. 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.)

As was the case with Seoul in 1988, NBC convinced the organizers of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics to stage many of their major events during the late morning and early afternoon hours, which translated to live coverage during prime time in the United States.

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, under whom NBC overbid 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 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and $1.23 billion for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. NBC delayed the 2016 Opening Ceremony by an hour. Also NBC paid $963 million for the 2018 Winter Olympics, which were held in Pyeongchang, South Korea and $1.45 billion for the 2020 Summer Olympics, which will be held in Tokyo, Japan. NBC has announced that it will begin airing all of the events live either on TV or the internet.[6][7]

Thanks to favorable time differences, much of NBC's coverage from Vancouver (2010 Winter Olympics) was live; as was most of NBC's prime-time coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.