The 1964 Winter Games were in Innsbruck, Austria, and coverage was taped and flown by plane back to the United States.

A portion of the Closing Ceremony was televised live via satellite (Telstar, which had to be tracked and allowed about a 15-minute window between the U.S. and Europe when it was zooming over the Atlantic).

[3] By 1968, ABC was broadcasting the Olympics in full color, and satellites made possible live coverage of several events at the Winter Games in Grenoble, France.

Highlighting the 1968 Winter Games was a dramatic sweep in men's alpine skiing by Frenchman Jean-Claude Killy, while the major highlight of the Summer Games was a world-record long jump by Bob Beamon of the United States, which happened to air live in the US.

It was during the Summer Games that Palestinian 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 in 1950 and later ABC in 1961.

After an unsuccessful rescue attempt of the athletes held hostage, at 3:24 AM German Time, McKay came on the air with this statement:[4][5] When I was a kid my father used to say "Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized."

[6] He stated in a 2003 HBO documentary about his life and career that he was most proud of a telegram he received from Walter Cronkite the day after the massacre praising his work.

Sugar Ray Leonard won the gold medal in his light welterweight class at Montreal, beginning his meteoric rise to a world professional title three years later.

[10] Chuck Mangione's instrumental song "Give It All You Got" was originally featured as the official theme of the 1980 Winter Olympics, held in Lake Placid, New York.

[11] ABC had used Mangione's recordings four years earlier during their coverage of the 1976 Summer Olympics, and then-ABC Sports president Roone Arledge asked the musician to create the theme song for the Winter games.

According to Al Michaels,[18] ABC was in the running to purchase the broadcasting rights for the 1996 Summer Games from Atlanta.

[19] As of May 7, 2014, NBC now holds control of the Olympic television coverage in the United States through the 2032 Summer Games.