The 1988 Winter Olympics from Calgary as broadcast by ABC. This is part 1, featuring Jim McCay. A nice introduction, I think. What's nice about this is that the ceremonies were aired live in the afternoon.
Just for reference, ABC actually aired the Calgary opening ceremony LIVE starting at 2:30pm ET in the afternoon, rather than delaying it for primetime broadcast. The London 2012 ceremony took place at around the same time, but NBC chose to delay it & heavily edited out a lot of the footage, most notoriously, the tribute to those who have died in the 7/7 bombings one day after the city won the right to host the Summer Games..
That was because the first two games of the men's hockey tournament happened that evening. I believe one was the Americans' opener (which I think ABC showed in its entirety); the other the Russians' opener (which I think ABC showed highlights of the first two periods and the third period in full).
Can't believe how far our city has gone since this moment. Hearing Calgary having 650,000 people, damn what happened in those days. We're past 1.2 million, and have almost doubled what we had back then.
These olympics certainly helped to raise the profile of the city of calgary and just Alberta itself.I've been living in Calgary since 1997 but did live here for 2 years in the 80's as a kid with my family and do remember watching these opening ceremonies home in Cape Breton on television.The population has at least doubled since then and it sure has grown leaps and bounds.
Interesting. The Calgary 1988 Olympics were the LAST games that were aired by ABC. Almost 30 years later, and we're still comparing ABC's coverage to what NBC has done with the games. The big difference: ABC covered the Olympics--all of it, even with the limited resources we had back then (no ESPN, no CNN, limited cable TV). You knew you were watching the Olympics, and it was going to be special. ABC's Olympic theme music still gives me chills of excitement. By contrast, NBC only covers Americans at the Olympics (with the exception of Usain Bolt), and just decided 2 years ago to finally make every event available LIVE, but you have to watch it online. Even with modern conveniences of cable, round-the-clock sports and news channels, etc., and NBC still to this day insists it has to tape delay prime events. They even had to go buy ABC's music, and borrowed Jim McKay for Salt Lake City in 2002. Watching these ceremonies, there was no better duo than Jim McKay and Peter Jennings. Jim, with his encyclopedia of sports facts and figures, and Peter brought his immense knowledge of world geo-politics and cultural travels. And yet, both never talked down to their viewers during their commentary. No one at NBC or CBS (when they had the winter games) has ever come close to doing what these guys did at the games. The Canadians and Mexicans have it right....live coverage all the time!
Someday, the Olympics will be back on ABC along with ESPN. ESPN/ABC should have aired the 2010 Winter Olympics and 2012 Summer Olympics instead of NBC. Why!? ESPN/ABC would have done a better job of Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 than NBC, especially London!
For a long time I wanted that. I don't know whether it's just nostalgia, but I liked their Sarajevo, LA and Calgary broadcasts better than NBC's and certainly CBS's coverage. Thankfully NBC purchased the rights to ABC's John Williams theme song, but it hasn't been quite the same. There was a certain whimsy and wonder to ABC's Wide World of Sports coverage of non-mainstream events. But NBC has now covered every summer and winter games since 2000, and will continue through 2032. Meanwhile ABC sports hasn't really existed for a long time, at least not in the same form as its pre-Disney acquisition. An ABC/ESPN Olympics could be much better, or...I don't know
This was most recent time the Olympic Games have been broadcasted on ABC. ABC was in the running to purchase the broadcasting rights for the 1996 Summer Games from Atlanta. As a provision in his contract renewal with ABC back in 1992, in the event that ABC were to broadcast the Olympics again, Michaels would get to become the prime time anchor while Jim McKay would instead play an emeritus role. Ultimately though, NBC bought the rights to the Atlanta Games for $456 million, edging out ABC by $6 million. In August 2008, ESPN, which produces sports broadcasts for ABC (branded as ESPN on ABC), stated that they would make a serious bid for the 2014 games in Sochi, Russia and the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. However, NBC won the rights to American television coverage of the Olympics through the 2020 Summer Games.
Wow! holy apeshit Did he say a population of 650,000??? Wow! What a long way we have come. Calgary was the first to hold the winter games in Canada. They will return. You know why? We know how to host a party! wooooo......
NBC will have to show the events all live now since they will be held here in the Western hemisphere here in 2016 the first since 1996 and only a one hour time difference between eastern standard time and Brazil time mostly every thing will have to be live because it falls on prime time if NBC is smart
Does anyone know the track of music that's playing under the first 45 seconds of the video? That's not the John Williams/Bugler's Dream music. I've been trying to figure out what that cut of music is for years now!
Yes, the OLD ABC could really do an Olympics. Honestly, I would not trust ESPN with an Olympics...I feel it would be worse than NBC...and NBC did have the Opening Ceremony in Vancouver LIVE...actually it is easier to carry more Olympics Live when they are in North America regardless of which broadcast company does it...and as far as tape-delay that's just life we're not gonna get everything we want
@yesyouam Awesome, thanks for the info! Would you happen to know the name of the piece? I've literally been trying to find it for years, but everything I look up referencing Bestor just says 1988 Olympics on ABC.
Bestor's 1988 arrangement grew out of Bill Conti's original "Power" theme for the 1984 Summer Olympics album: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DT-RlgbBj4Q.html ABC used a much different arrangement of "Power" in their 1984 Pre-Summer Olympics special: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-u2rrYva8_Kw.html I love this version (never released), but do not know who arranged it. Maybe Conti (a good possibility)... or maybe John Williams, who composed the legendary "Olympic Fanfare and Theme" for the same Olympics. Bestor then modified for ABC's 1988 coverage. Hope someone can solve this mystery!
They would probably discard the longtime John Williams Olympic theme used by ABC and NBC and use their NFL theme for the Olympics which is way too hardcore. Joe Buck (who is the worst announcer in sports) would probably do the opening and closing ceremonies. FOX's coverage of the Olympics would be awful since they only have 5 networks to broadcast events on (FOX, FS1, FS2, FX and FXX) and many sports like Judo would have their events broadcast via live stream or not all which means US fans of these sports would have to watch their event via the BBC or CBC feeds. The announcers would be of terrible quality as well. I would like to see the Olympics stay on NBC since they do a good job of covering them or have them moved to ESPN/ABC or CBS/Turner if NBC gives up the rights but not to FOX for the reasons listed above
They would show more commercials than NBC. They would sub-sponsor more since FOX has never seen a nickel they did not like.... Judo presented by Ford. Weightlifting presented by 5 hour energy, the opening ceremonies presented by Pepsi but when Norway walks in, that is sub-sub presented by Pure Leaf tea. Agree they would use Joe Buck (Can't call football..... can't call baseball either, arrogant and the broadcast is about him not the game) who has piggy backed off his dad's name for decades now.
I think ABC and ESPN will be rejoining the Olympic Movement - American Olympic Channel - Home of Team USA takes over the Universal HD Channel on July 15th. As Jim McKay would say, you ain't seen nothing. The IOC, USOC and NBC Universal are taking over the televising. Mike Tirico is in, Bob Costas has retired.
