Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 13, 1994 TAG: 9402120081
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The network will begin its 16 days of 1994 Winter Olympics coverage today (8 p.m., WDBJ) with the opening ceremonies. Then, CBS has almost two weeks to build toward one of the most-anticipated events in Olympic history.
The free skate, the final portion of women's figure skating, is at 1 p.m. Feb. 25. CBS, which has paid $295 million for the U.S. telecast rights for a situation just like this, will embargo that competition for airing that night in prime-time.
It could be the finish of "Skategate." It could be Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding in a duel of blades. It could be one of the most-watched shows in TV history.
CBS, after meeting its Nielsen ratings goal two years ago at the Albertville Games, could have had the highest-rated Winter Olympics since the 1980 Lake Placid Games even without Harding and Kerrigan.
On the 10 nights with figure skating on the schedule, about 60 percent of the Olympic coverage will be devoted to that sport.
However, the network's challenge is to continue to tell a story that has gotten old but no less compelling and weave it among 120 total telecast hours from a Norwegian town that's smaller than Salem.
"I've been over here two days now," said Jim Nantz, CBS' studio host, speaking Friday from Lillehammer. "It seems like at home, we've been inundated with Tonya and Nancy. It's on CNN, ESPN, the network news and even the local news.
"In Europe, you hear about it, but you're not so swarmed with stories about the two. It's just that way in their own environment."
Nantz, who has spent most of the past few days visiting venues and talking to athletes, said the residents of the Olympic Village are weary of figure skating's controversy.
"I flew here with some U.S. athletes and I've talked to some others, and I get a sense that more than a few of them feel like they're being shortchanged because all of the attention back home is going to Kerrigan and Harding," Nantz said.
"Figure skating is always strong enough without this. This will just take the audience to greater heights.
"There are a lot of people here who won't get much glory from winning a gold medal. They won't be able to cash in like the figure skaters can. There are no `Stars on Ice' tours in many of these sports.
"We might have the first American ever to win a medal in luge, but there's no luge league I know of. These people are doing what they do for self-satisfaction, not $2 million. Nancy Kerrigan, she's been forecast as finishing anywhere from a gold medal to fifth place, but she's already assured a jackpot."
For his second Winter Games assignment, Nantz will share the weekend daytime host's role with Andrea Joyce. He also will call some freestyle skiing. His main job, however, will be to transmit to viewers the warmth he said "is what's really special" at a Winter Games.
"There's an intimacy to these Games that makes them different," Nantz said. "It very different from Albertville two years ago, because those Games were spread out over the French Alps. You never got that cozy feel.
"I've never covered the Summer Games, but I don't think you could get that feel there, either. There are so many more sports and people, and the cities that host the Summer Games are always large, metropolitan cities. Lillehammer has about 22,000 [population]."
Nantz has another notion about the Winter Olympics and the United States, which hasn't exactly overrun the medals stand in the snow.
"The Summer Olympics are supposed to be more valuable to U.S. television," said Nantz, 34. "The rights fees always are much higher, and the sports are more familiar to Americans and we win many more medals than in the winter.
"But the TV ratings say that the Winter Games are more popular. Our prime-time rating in Albertville was more than 10 percent [11.3 percent] higher than for the Summer Games in Barcelona [on NBC].
"Maybe it's because it's February and cold and people are stuck inside watching TV, but there has to be something there for people to watch."
Nantz will return to his role as the primary play-by-play voice for college basketball on CBS after the Olympics and call the NCAA Tournament. On his phone call to a stateside fellow voter in the AP poll Friday, he asked, "What happened in college basketball last night? Any upsets?"
Then, Nantz goes directly from the Final Four at the Charlotte (N.C.) Coliseum to the Masters, where he is the host for CBS' coverage. The following week at Hilton Head Island, S.C., he will become CBS' lead golf announcer from the 18th-hole tower, replacing Pat Summerall, who is headed for NFL work on the Fox Network.
While he's in Lillehammer, however, Nantz is trying to locate intriguing viewing for the CBS audience. He offers a tip for Sunday night's show.
"On the [skiing] course at Kvitfjell, there's a breathtaking point 44 seconds into the men's downhill," Nantz said. "It's called `Russi's Jump,' named for Bernard Russi of Switzerland, who designed the course.
"The skiers hit that spot on the course 44 seconds in and they seem to be suspended in the air for five seconds. It's spectacular viewing. We also have a `super slo-mo' camera there. To me, Russi's Jump is the best watch of the weekend."
Nantz knows, however, that most viewers simply will be counting the hours until women's figure skating.
by CNB