Olympic Media

Inside the Biggest Show on Television

Andrew C Billings, Andrew Billings

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780415772501
• eBook ISBN: 9781135980641
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Located in the United States, NBC (National Broadcasting Company) is the biggest and most powerful Olympic network in the world, having won the rights to televise both the Summer and the Winter Olympic Games. By way of attracting more viewers of both sexes and all ages and ethnicities than any other sporting event, and through the production of breathtaking spectacles and absorbing stories, NBC's Olympic telecasts have huge power and potential to shape viewer perceptions.

Billings's unique text examines the production, content, and potential effects of NBC's Olympic telecasts. Interviews with key NBC Olympic producers and sportscasters (including NBC Universal Sports and Olympics President Dick Ebersol and primetime anchor Bob Costas) outline the inner workings of the NBC Olympic machine; content analyses from ten years of Olympic telecasts (1996-2006) examine the portrayal of nationality, gender, and ethnicity within NBC's telecast; and survey analyses interrogate the extent to which NBC's storytelling process affects viewer beliefs about identity issues. This mixed-method approach offers valuable insights into what Billings portrays as "the biggest show on television".

1 Investigating the biggest show on television

The Olympics are an epic event, so can anything be overstated?

(Bob Costas, 2006)

Olympic telecasts render the biggest of stories on the grandest of stages. The inception of the first live telecast was at the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin. More than two dozen viewing halls were built in Berlin so the German people could watch the broadcasts. The picture quality was poor, but the link between television and the Olympic Games was established. From that time, the Olympics have been imbued with ultra-competitive nationalism. The Nazis, already exploiting “the new technologies of the mass media in spreading their propaganda domestically”, used the Games as a stage for their own political purposes (Beamish and Ritchie, 2006, p. 34). However, what has been remembered through history is that Black American Jesse Owens won four gold medals in front of the citizens of Nazi Germany, challenging Adolf Hitler’s aspiration to showcase Aryan dominance.

Twelve years later, London was the stage for the first post-World War II Games, when Fanny Blankers-Koen (dubbed the “Flying Dutch Housewife” and “Mother of two”) won four gold medals, becoming a lasting symbol of radical athletic femininity. By 1952, the Olympics had entered the Cold War era, the United States and the Soviet Union became superpower antagonists, and media narratives were created in America and other countries in the West about the notion of communist “professional” athletes disadvantaging amateur athletes from democratic countries (O’Riordan, 2007).

The first international telecasts of Olympic competition took place at the 1956 Winter Games in Cortina, Italy. They were for viewers in only eight countries in Europe, but it was the start of the global spread of the Olympic telecast, bringing images of Olympic athletes into local communities and homes across the world. The first Olympic television rights were sold for the 1960 Rome Summer Olympics, which also marked South Africa’s last participation in the Games until 1992. It was at these Olympics, as well, that barefooted Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila¹ became the first Black African to win gold in any Games.

The 1968 Mexico City Games brought another significant racial image, as Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos protested against racial inequality in their home country while also celebrating Black achievement in a demonstration of “Black Power” on the medal stand.² From that time, the Olympics became a world stage of protest against political and social injustices. Another protest that had taken place ten days before the Mexico Games—in opposition to their huge extravagance—resulted in the Tlatelolco massacre of hundreds of students by security forces. The Western media in America and Europe systematically downplayed the tragedy to generate idealized depictions of Olympism throughout the Games.

In 1972, the lasting images of the Munich Olympics should have been 17-year-old Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut inspiring millions of future gymnasts and US swimmer Mark Spitz’s incredible seven gold medals, yet the images conveyed by the television monitors of Arab terrorists in ski masks stalking the balcony of the Israeli quarters in the Olympic village, followed by the deaths of 11 Israeli Olympians and one German police officer, together with the words of the late President of the IOC (International Olympic Committee), Avery Brundage—“The Games must go on”—produced resounding memories for the viewers that have lasted through history.

The 1976 Innsbruck Winter Olympics were the last Games at which the title Republic of China was used for the island of Taiwan, as a result of the hostilities between Taiwanese separatists and mainland China (People’s Republic of China). The future title adopted by Taiwan for Olympic competition was Chinese Taipei. The separatist struggle was still ongoing at the time of the publication of this book in 2008 and separatists were preparing protests for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics spearheaded the “Age of Olympic boycotts” when more than 40 nations withdrew their teams from the Olympics following the IOC’s refusal to ban New Zealand from the Games after their violation of the international sports ban on apartheid South Africa. The 1980s brought a decade of further boycotts, including the US-led boycott, with 50 other countries, of the 1980 Moscow Olympics in protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (with an associated loss of worldwide television exposure) and the counter boycott by the Soviet Union, East Germany, and a dozen other countries of the 1984 Los Angeles Games (with no loss of television revenue). The East–West athletic cold war was at its height, and was reflected in all forms of media discourse and representation.

The 1980s brought tremendous achievements as well, including the 1980 “Miracle on Ice”, when an American ice hockey team of young college players took down the “mighty Red Machine” from the USSR, depicted by Sports Illustrated³ as “the single most indelible moment in all of US sports history … that sent an entire nation into a frenzy” (Sports Illustrated, 2000). The People’s Republic of China competed for the first time at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid in the US, which marked an increased concern in the Western media about state-controlled drug abuse under Communism. In 1984, Nawal El Moutawakel from Morocco made history when she became the first woman from the African continent to win a gold medal and simultaneously the first Arab woman and the first Muslim woman to win gold.

The Seoul Summer Games of 1988 featured a militarized culture with antigovernment protests by students, thousands of the urban poor, and leftist intellectuals denouncing the Games for promoting a sports circus for the “haves” at the expense of the “have nots”. Yet the predominant media discourse was about “The Friendly Games” with representations of colorful costumes and flying doves at the Opening Ceremony. Also at the Seoul Games, Ben Johnson, the “World’s Fastest Man”, was stripped of his Olympic 100-meters gold medal and world title for testing positive for banned drug use. Not surprisingly, the media debate about drug-taking in sport reached a new peak and was reflected in NBC’s telecast. NBC (National Broadcasting Company) was the television network that had won the rights to televise the 1988 Summer Olympics for the American public viewership. In the next two decades, NBC evolved to be known as the “Olympic network”, securing multiple Olympic television bids at once and building a group of producers and sportscasters with tremendous Olympic experience. (An empirical study of NBC’s telecasts over a period of ten years—with a particular focus on the Torino Winter Olympics in 2006—provides the major focus of this book.)

The 1990s heralded the first Olympics after the fall of Communism and the reunification of Germany (the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France), and the last entry of a team from the Soviet Union (the Unified Team). The decade also offered advents in the ways in which viewers consumed the Games, with NBC offering a Triplecast so that people could pay for hundreds of additional hours of the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics. This decade also gave rise to professional Olympic athletes, allowing the American basketball “Dream Team”, who resoundingly won a gold medal, to enter for the first time. Participating nations continued to expand in number, with Cuba and South Africa being welcomed back into the Olympic fold, further increasing the ethnic diversity of the athletes. The Summer and Winter Olympics began alternating in even-numbered years beginning in 1994. The fear of terrorists targeting the Olympic Games became a reality in 1996 in Atlanta in the USA when a pipe bomb exploded in the Centennial Olympic Park, killing a woman and injuring over one hundred people.

The new millennium brought the 2000 Summer Olympics to Sydney, Australia—described by International Olympic Committee President, Juan Antonio Samaranch, as the “best Olympics ever”. The Games had an epic quality, with 10,651 athletes from 199 countries competing in 300 events covered by 16,033 media professionals and with hugely spectacular opening and closing ceremonies. But the most memorable image of the Games for millions of viewers across the world was sprinter Cathy Freeman running the race of her life to win the 400-meter Olympic gold medal in an all-in-one Nike Swift Suit that encased her whole body from head to toe. But while Cathy Freeman symbolized Aboriginal pride and multicultural Australianness, outside the stadium Aboriginal activists were protesting about the human rights abuses against their peoples. Their protest was downplayed by the Australian and international media and the sense of a “ruptured nation of difference and inequalities” was in most cases ignored (Hargreaves, 2000, p. 125).

Personalities, politics, and problems have continued to be part of the Olympic equation. For example, Nina Suratger carried the flag for Afghanistan at the Opening Ceremony of the Athens Olympics in 2004, bringing to the attention of the viewing audience that it was the first time Afghani women had competed in the history of the Olympics, in common with other Muslim women from countries in the Gulf States. A major focus of this book was an investigation of data gathered from the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics. North Korea and South Korea marched together under the Unification Flag for the first time at these Games. The continuing fear of terrorism was the reason for the greatly increased security measures that were put in place for the Torino Games and in his opening address the IOC President, Jacques Rogge, said, “Our world today is in need of peace and brotherhood, the values of the Olympic Games … May these Games be held in peace in the true spirit of the Olympic Truce”.

The first Summer Olympics after the publication of this book will be in Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China. Despite the fact that, in March 2004, China amended its constitution to read, “The State respects and protects human rights”, there is evidence to the contrary. But it is specifically the position of media professionals that will most immediately affect reports of the Games. Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, reports that:

The Chinese government is already failing to deliver on its pledge to fully lift restrictions for foreign journalists ahead of the Beijing Games … arbitrary restrictions on press freedoms undermine the new regulations, and raise questions about the government’s commitment to implement them in the first place.

(Human Rights News, 2007; Human Rights Overview, 2006)

NBC prepares for its telecast seven years in advance of every Olympic Games. Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics, lobbied successfully for some of the Games’ premier events to be scheduled so that American audiences can see them live on primetime television (Thompson, 2007). Given that NBC Universal paid $894 million for the US television rights for the Beijing Olympics, the IOC was heavily criticized for caving in to commercial pressure (Thompson, 2007). Ebersol also revealed details about NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics, referring to its “first-ever wireless coverage with streams of highlights—and access to live streaming of 24 sports—1,200-plus hours in all”. He went on to say, “NBC will offer ‘full rewind of key events’ and daily highlights of every sport” (Pearce, 2007). NBC has produced a website video in preparation for the Beijing Games which focuses expressly on top American athletes—in motion, competing, winning medals—preparing for China with the hope of maintaining “America’s position as one of sports’ certified powers”. Michael Phelps, the winner of six gold medals in Athens 2004, said, “When I get in the water, I know what I have to do, and I know what I want to do … I want to swim faster”. The commentary goes on, “He goes to China with the possibility of becoming the greatest Olympic champion of all time”. Beijing is represented as “the most populous nation on earth … a place of wondrous scale where men once made structures that stretch towards infinity … a country in fast forward as a global superpower has become the most fascinating headline of this new century”. The Beijing Olympics is depicted as “The TV event of the decade [that] is coming to NBC August 8, 2008” (NBC Sports, 2007).

That the Olympic Games are unique in their ability to bring together thousands of competitors and officials from the majority of the countries in the world, and to put on a showcase of unmatched athletic triumphs as well as catastrophes has been evident from Olympic telecasts since 1948. Where else could one witness a Jamaican bobsledding team, a women’s hockey team from Russia, a South Korean ski jumper, and women competing in the dangerous event of skeleton melded into one telecast? The Olympics provide a unique opportunity for the viewer to be teleported to a new country and to witness people from nations and cultures across the world bonded over a common Olympic dream. But, as Bianco (2006b) asserts, “The Olympics are more than just games”. Referring to NBC’s telecast of the Torino Winter Olympics in 2006, he continues, “And that will be particularly true in China, which is less familiar to many of us than Italy and far more politically charged. We’ll expect a broader picture” (Bianco, 2006b). The examples above also reveal that the Olympics reflect links between the social, political, and economic influences on sport, embodying both homogeneity and difference within individual nation states, and friendship and hostility between different nation states, juxtaposing the Olympic ideal with the reality of winning at all costs. Mixed together with coverage of the actual competitions, these are the ingredients of thrilling histories and breathtaking stories of emotion, drama, and spectacle.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the Olympics have tremendous appeal, and thousands of people travel enormous distances from faraway places to watch them live. But millions (indeed, often billions) who cannot travel to the Olympic events nevertheless, as we have seen, witness them through the eye of the most ubiquitous of all modern media: television. It is estimated that in Beijing there will be a worldwide television audience of as many as eight billion people (IOC Marketing Fact File, 2006). Maurice Roche (2004, p. 167) claims that “Megaevents such as the Olympic Games undoubtedly qualify as examples of ‘media-events’” which, he goes on to explain, “go beyond news and entertainment, and also can be said to ‘make history’”. There is credence to the belief that history is written by the winners, but in relation to the Olympics “it is also written by those with the television rights” (Billings et al., in press, n. p.).

Since 1988, the American network exclusively “writing” the history of the Summer Olympics has been NBC; beginning in 2002, NBC has chronicled the history of the Winter Games as well. NBC is the biggest and most powerful Olympic network in the world⁴ and has won the rights to televise the grandest of all megasporting events (Eastman et al., 1996). The outcome is NBC’s Olympic telecast. The specific aims of this book have been to investigate the production processes and influences of this hugely powerful cultural and economic phenomenon. I have done so by investigating: (1) the roles and attitudes to those roles of NBC’s Olympic producers and telecasters; (2) the attitudes to and the effects on viewers of the telecast; and (3) the significance of the telecast discourses associated in particular with nationalism, gender, and ethnicity.

Some excellent academic books have been written on the Olympics (e.g. Bass, 2002; Beamish and Ritchie, 2006; Espy, 1979; Larson and Park, 1993; Lenskyj, 2000, 2002; Moragas Spa, Rivenburgh et al., 1995; Pound, 2004; Puijk, 1997; Schaffer and Smith, 2000; Senn, 1999; Toohey and Veal, 2000), and thousands of journalists have scrutinized the manner in which the Olympic telecast is conveyed. Without question, there is no shortage of opinions about the strengths and weaknesses of the modern Olympic telecast, yet what this book provides, which is not present in the present literature, is a closer look inside the Olympic telecast. Interviews with the key NBC producers (including Dick Ebersol) and sportscasters inform the investigation in new, intriguing ways. Although the interviews took place in the months following the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics, the questions—and subsequent interviewee responses—incorporate NBC’s collective institutional memory since Dick Ebersol began overseeing the Olympic telecast in 1988.

Content analysis and media surveys have been combined to form a more complete picture as to how Olympic reports move from NBC Sports to the television screen and then to the at-home viewer. This book (a) uncovers what NBC claims or hopes they are achieving within their Olympic telecast, then (b) analyzes the actual broadcast to see if these aims are achieved, and finally (c) comments on biases or differences in the coverage that relate to societal perceptions of identity (see Morris, 2006).

Establishing Olympic television dominance

Most television executives will postulate that more has changed in their industry during the past ten years than in the entire history of the medium. Cable offerings provide hundreds of counter-programming options to mainstream free-network telecasts; on-demand television, Internet re-airings, and digital video recorders allow viewers to consume their favorite programs at virtually all hours of the day; and increased media options and formats supply elevated competition for networks struggling to avoid ratings erosion. Viewers watch more television per day than ever before (Ayres, 2006), yet do so in starkly different ways. Few standards of television viewing have remained static over the past several decades. Many might question the initial premise of Olympic media dominance, particularly when no single Olympic telecast was the number one show of the week in the United States during the 2006 Torino

Olympics (that distinction belonged to American Idol⁵), and after the lackluster ratings when many critics were quick to announce the death of the Olympic telecast (UPI Report, 2006). But despite its detractors, the Olympic telecast remains the only telecast that can capture not just a national but a global Zeitgeist for weeks on end.

It is encouraging to report that the discussion of the sports media has progressed significantly over the past few decades. In his book, Fields in Vision, Garry Whannel (1992) needed to first justify the study of sports media at all, arguing that “television sport is by any standards a component of popular culture and to understand it better is to understand more about the culture in which we live” (p. 2). Now, with US television sometimes offering several dozen sports telecasts in the same time period, and the enormous international appeal of megasport events such as the Soccer (Football) World Cup and the Wimbledon tennis championships, that argument appears to be irrefutable. But the Olympics are consistentl...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of illustrations
• Series editors’ foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Investigating the biggest show on television
• 2 Meet the “framers”: the Olympic producers
• 3 Chronicling history: the Olympic sportscasters
• 4 The star-spangled Games?: nationalism and the Olympic telecasts
• 5 Competing on the same stage: gender and the Olympic telecasts
• 6 Dialogue differences in black and white?: ethnicity and the Olympic telecasts
• 7 What do American Olympic viewers think happened in Torino?: examining media effects
• 8 Looking forward by looking back: reflections on the Olympic telecasts
• References