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Show CspQrts prQbe) 'EVENT' TV Already the ABC-TV network is beating . the drums tor its sports coverage of the 1984 Olympics. To ABC, the price is right. James E. Duffy, president presi-dent of ABC, says the network net-work wants to raise $625 million from advertisers for its coverage of the Summer Games in Los Angeles and the Winter Games in Yugoslavia. Yugo-slavia. Already ABC has begun its programming countdown count-down to the Olympics. This includes plans to televise events such as NCAA championships in June, the National Sports Festival this summer and the New York Marathon in October.' Duffy predicts ABC's telecast of the Summer Games from Los Angeles in 1984 will be the single greatest event undertaken in the history of broadcasting. broadcast-ing. He estimates that a record 170 million Americans Ameri-cans will see some or all of ABC's coverage of the Summer Games. (By comparison, an estimated esti-mated 140 million people recently watched some segment of "The Winds of War" miniseries the most watched single program pro-gram in American televison history.) "These Olympics are important to America," Duffy says. "There is great pride here. I believe the Summer Games in Los ' Angeles next year will be ' the greatest Olympics ever... 150 nations participating, partici-pating, mainland China competing for the first time, half the human race to see . it on telelvison." Vows Duffy: "This is event television in its greatest great-est form." Citing the prestige TV sponsors can gain from the Olympics, he explains: "There is identity with youth, with athletes, with the human drama of sports, with international undery standing and competition. As a marketing vehicle, he says, "it is unbeatable." To some Olympic sponsors, spon-sors, ABC is offering "category "cate-gory exclusivity." The Coca-Cola Company Compa-ny has purchased the entire soft-drink category $34.2 million for the Summer Sum-mer games and $6.8 for the Winter Olympics. And the fast-food category was bought by McDonald's for $30 million in the summer and nearly $6 million in the winter. Says Duffy: "What the promotions and commercials commer-cials and sponsorship are doing is making the Olympics Olym-pics possible, expanding them, bringing them to everyone via the advertiser-supported advertiser-supported system of television." televi-sion." At a price, of course. 1983Compulog' |
