Was just recalling fond memories of 20 years ago in Calgary with the 88 Winter Olympics. For me it was an honor to be involved as a Broadcaster during this time. I thought it relevant to open a thread on the subject. Looking forward to reading your thoughts.
For television, the 22 years that will separate the Calgary and Vancouver Winter Olympics might as well be a millennium.
Things have changed.
The TV precedent-setter at the Calgary Olympics in 1988 was TSN becoming the first all-sport cable channel to carry Olympic programming.
CTV aired 118 hours of coverage back then. TSN's daily highlights package added up to 112 hours. The CBC produced a one-hour recap in prime time.
For the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, the CTV-Rogers Media consortium will provide more than seven times that amount: 1,767 hours on CTV, TSN, RDS, Rogers Sportsnet and the Rogers Omni channels.
To acquire the Calgary TV rights, CTV outbid the CBC, paying $4.3-million, a large sum in those days.
For Vancouver, the CTV-Rogers rights fee will be $90-million (U.S.), with an additional $63-million going to the International Olympic Committee for the London Summer Games in 2012.
So much has changed in 20 years that the term TV coverage has become almost outdated.
"We're no longer in the television business," said CTV president Rick Brace, who was executive producer of TSN's Olympic coverage in 1988. "We're in the media business.
"Back then, it was a television experience. This time, it's going to be a cross-platform media experience. By the time we're to 2010, between broadband and other Internet applications and radio and television, there's no comparison whatsoever."
Sportsnet president Doug Beeforth said the means of distributing content, particularly by wireless units, is moving at such a speed it's almost impossible to know what 2010 will bring.
"We're two years away from the Olympics, and, even now, we're still not 100-per-cent sure what the technology is going to be for Vancouver, because things move so fast," he said.
Vancouver also will be the first all high-definition TV Winter Olympics. But one thing that won't change is the high standard expected of Olympic telecasts.
It's safe to say CTV's surpassing the quality of its domestic coverage at Calgary is attainable. Disastrous is a word often used to describe the 1988 coverage.
"An embarrassment of glitches, goof-ups and groaners," was the way one TV critic put it.
For those who were involved in CTV's host broadcast, particularly executive producer Ralph Mellanby, it's important to differentiate between CTV host and domestic productions.
The performance of CTV's host broadcast, which provided the international feed to countries around the world, was praised.
CTV's domestic service, which produced the coverage seen in Canada, was pilloried.
"They had one disaster after another disaster," Mellanby recalled.
When CTV aired an Olympic special a day before the start of the Games, the sound disappeared. The technical problems continued. And the on-air people seemed overwhelmed.
A week into the Games, the host broadcast crew was wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the message "We're not the CTV domestic broadcaster."
Mellanby said the CTV domestic crew lacked the CBC's Olympic broadcasting experience and was short on resources, particularly on-air. He also believes CTV waited too long before getting started.
"[American channel] ABC arrived in Calgary six months ahead of the Games," Mellanby said. "The ABC guys kept saying, 'When are we going to see CTV's domestic crew out here?' They showed up too late, and, to be honest, they just didn't know what they were doing."
Beeforth, who was Mellanby's second-in-command in Calgary, said the host broadcast also scooped up the top Canadian talent. There wasn't much left over for the domestic side.
Producers from outside Canada also were hired. A Dutch crew produced speed skating. Finnish broadcasters did cross-country skiing.
"This was the first time really that a host broadcaster went out and got experts for certain venues," said NHL broadcasting executive John Shannon, who produced hockey for the Calgary host broadcast. "Ralph and Doug did a very good job of putting together a who's who to produce the world feed. Certainly on the Winter [Games] side, it's a blueprint that the IOC has followed."
CTV won't be extensively involved in the host broadcast of the Vancouver Olympics. The IOC now uses an in-house broadcasting company.
The domestic telecasts will be handled by the CTV-Rogers consortium headed by Keith Pelley, the former TSN and Toronto Argonauts president.
As well as domestic coverage, the consortium will produce hockey, figure skating and curling events for the IOC host broadcast.
Rick Chisholm has left his job as a TSN senior vice-president to be the executive vice-president of broadcasting for the consortium. Gord Cutler, a senior producer at NHL Network, will take over as one of the executive producers. Additional executive producing positions will be filled.
Beeforth doesn't anticipate a repeat of the Calgary problems at Vancouver.
"The guys who are going to be doing Vancouver live and eat and bleed sports television," he said. "So the things that happened to CTV domestically in Calgary, there's no way we will be going down that path in Vancouver."
I was doing the on-camera work for CODA and pulling Drive at 66-CFR while doing the Sportchek spots. This, while my wife was organising the Performing Arts Centre's festivities. Big times on Olympic Plaza!
I also was doing some on-camera work for Fed-Ex. Now, those guys were Pro! Nice corporate jet, too.
You were doing Drive at 66CFR in 1988? I could have sworn I was. Weird. You're not me are you? Man, this is turning into a Brad Paisley song.
Hold it, maybe I was doing mid days. No, that won't work since Pat O'Bryan was doing drive while I was doing mid days, and Pat has passed on, so you can't be him.
Hold it, maybe I was doing all nights. Then that means Shannon Cooke was doing Drive. Or was that after I left?
Did I ever do drive at CFR? I hope so, cause if not, I'll have to update my resume.
During the Calgary Olympics, I had a friend who was doing freelance work for the ABC network. She gave me a bag of ABC pins which were like GOLD at that time. I sold quite a few to the local pin Nazi's on the Stephen Ave Mall but ended up trading some for prime hockey tickets from the US Olympic Committee. The medal presentations at Olympic Plaza were also very memorable with the lasers bouncing off of the downtown highrises. I seem to recall climbing up on the roof of what I belive was the Jack Singer Concert Hall to get a keen vantage point. It was all very special and I hope Vancouver will be as memorable. If anyone wants to rent my basement suite in 2010 I am starting the bidding at $500/night.
Maybe that's the problem Pave. I'm still on meds. Actually, my wife told me I wasn't doing drive till the spring of '88. And she's always right. At least that's what I'm told.
My memory of the Olympics: doing the voiceover for the Ceremony of Medal Winners. (It was a brief history of the modern olympics, as I recall) I had moved to Calgary to join CISS AM (formerly CKXL) from CKY Winnipeg. Roy Hennessy was the GM in Calgary and had been my GM in Winnipeg. Great radio man- probably deserved better talent than me. The audio producer was a chap from Winnipeg, and he got me the gig.
It was pretty cool, but I never actually got to see the final product.
Dave
Oh ya, I did a 5 second spot for SONY for the olympics too. "Catch all the action, on A SONY!" Five seconds of (koff) glory. Ah well, at least I can remember the script!
the early part of '88 was busy for me as i was working in calgary - cfac - and canmore - cfhc.....in addition to working mornings in canmore and weekends in calgary, i was also given the task of director of activities at the canmore athletes village....after my morning program, it was downtown to the stations remote setup for the olympics where we were broadcasting noon thru 5 pm daily from a truck and camper jim kunkel had secured for us....at this site we were trading pins, giving away free campbells soup and putting people from all over the world on local radio.....after a couple hours helping at the remote site it was over to the atletes village where my job was to see the volunteer staff at the pool, bar and nighclub were on time and not getting hustled by the athletes....i also looked after bringing in the afternoon entertainment for the cafeteria and the nighttime acts for the little club they had set up.....not a lot of famous names however i do recall 'big millar', swanny and todd, shari ulrich, oscar and lopez and many more.....also got to do a few minutes on german tv....a crew stopped by the local canmore station because they thought we were an oddity...we played country music and they thought this would be a good feature for back in germany....they had me repeat a few lines in german then intro john denvers 'rocky mountain high' as they panned from me to the control room window and right out at the mountains....it sure was a great time....just wish i would have bought land in the valley back then.....
I was given a production assistant job by ABC Sports 2 days before the start of the Olympics. The biggest thrill for me was the ABC Sports jacket and other clothing they gave us because along with your accreditation, you could pretty much go anywhere and never wait in line. Electric Avenue was awesome during the Olympics. Celebrities were constantly getting tours through the Round-up centre (Michael J Fox, Bruce Jenner, Christy Brinkley), not too mention all of ABC's legendary broadcasters. It was an Amazing time. Oh yeah, the work was pretty cool too.
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