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.
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.
Also recorded at the 1968 Summer Olympics was the Black Power salute, a civil rights protest put on by American athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith at their award ceremony for the 200-meter dash.
After the IOC had banned Smith and Carlos, reporter Howard Cosell criticized the committee, calling them "pompous, arrogant, medieval minded men who regard the games as a private social preserve for their tiny clique..." and voiced his support for the African American athletes.
Although Chris Schenkel was the actual host of the Games that year, Arledge assigned the story to McKay largely because he had been a local news anchor in Baltimore, Maryland prior to joining CBS (and later ABC).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CBS's Winter Games coverage was shared with TNT, which aired events under the promotional slogan "The ultimate daytime drama."
NBC has explained that primetime coverage of select events, regardless of when they actually occur, is designed to maximize the total viewing audience.
Some examples of broadcast delay include: The broadcast delay practice even for major events has become increasingly frustrating with viewers in recent times due to the increased usage of social networking and Web sites (including the official Olympic site and NBC's Olympic website) posting results in real time.
[43] On a related note, networks not part of the Olympic coverage, even including NBC News, are given very restrictive policies on showing highlights.