Television In The Olympics

This book explores the Olympics as a communications event. In particular, it investigates the role of television in shaping the Games into a global media event. It deals with crucial issues related to media technology.

This is the first academic text to explore TV sports media's output from this 'behind the scenes' perspective including the first scholarly interviews with the influential US broadcasters and producers and sports media professionals.

As the Olympic spectacle grows, broadcast coverage becomes bigger, more complex, and more sophisticated. Part sporting event, part reality show, and part global festival, the Olympics can be seen as both intensely nationalistic and a celebration of a shared sense of international community. This book sheds new light on how the Olympic experience has been shaped by television and expanded across multiple platforms and formats. Combining a multitude of approaches ranging from interviews to content analyses to audience surveys, the book explores the production, influence, and significance of Olympic media in contemporary society. Built on a central case study of NBC’s coverage of the Rio Games in 2016, which is then placed within 20 years of content analyses, the book focuses on the entire Olympic television process from production to content to effects. Touching on key themes such as race, gender, history, consumerism, identity, nationalism, and storytelling, Olympic Television: Broadcasting the Biggest Show on Earth is fascinating reading for any student or scholar with an interest in sport, media, and the global impact of mega-events.

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 machi≠ 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".

Includes segments on Ana Quirot, Roza Galiyeva, Kristen Babb-Sprague, Moses Kiptanui, Justin Huish, and Kenny Moore and Mamo Wolde.

"This book arises from the need to analyse, in detail, the various economic aspects that the Olympic Games mean for host cities. Since 1984 increasingly more cities in the world have announced their interest in staging the Olympic Games, making it a festival with significant economic dimensions. What followed have been economic triumphs and tragedies, glories and fiascos - all are included in the 36 years of Olympic history reviewed in this book." - foreword.

In this sixth edition of Television Sports Production, regional Emmy Award-winning producer Jim Owens walks readers through the planning, setup, directing, announcing, shooting, and editing involved in covering a sports event. Originally written as a training guide for entry-level broadcast staff at the Olympics, this manual gives readers the tools they need to effectively cover sports from ice skating to motorcycle racing. Throughout, Owens breaks down all aspects of the production process, revealing the techniques that producers and directors use to bring sports to a worldwide audience. Chapters further include tips and advice on using the latest technologies and tools such as production trucks, REMIs, smart phones, mobile units, cameras, audio equipment, and lighting rigs. Featuring new instructive illustrations and sample forms, as well as testimonials from experienced professionals in the business, this new edition gives readers an inside look at how the experts produce live or recorded television and sports coverage. This comprehensive book is essential reading for intermediate and advanced students looking to learn how to successfully produce sports broadcasting.