Olympics on CBS
| Olympics on CBS | |
|---|---|
The Olympics on CBS logo from their Winter Olympics coverage during the 1990s.
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| Genre | Olympics telecasts |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 (1960s version) 3 (1990s version) 5 (total) |
| Production | |
| Location(s) | Various Olympic Games sites |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | Varies |
| Production company(s) | CBS Sports |
| Release | |
| Original network | CBS |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV) |
| Original release |
Original run: February 18 –
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The broadcasts of the Olympic Games produced by CBS Sports was shown on the CBS television network in the United States. The network's last Olympics broadcast was the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.
The first telecast of the Olympics on American television was from the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California. CBS paid just $50,000 to obtain the broadcast rights. Walter Cronkite hosted the game 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. 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 time that transporting videotapes into the city would take) for later telecast.
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