Television
Terzian, Philip
Television THE SPORTING LIFE ABC'S OLYMPIC GAMESMANSHIP IS IT TRUE that athletics are a metaphor for American Life? It is frequently said that they are, and it may be true. The argument goes...
...Were we watching to see the Olympics or get a patriotic shot in the arm...
...The answers were as uniform as the questions, and what they did, in the end, was point up the substance of the coverage in essence: noise...
...medals and preoccupation with the occasional winners became the viewer's abiding interest...
...While people sped and stumbled, arched and twirled, there was the incessant din of the sportscaster, the gratuitous coach, the has-been and never-was who can let nothing lie when silence — a kind of broadcasting modesty — does the trick...
...The logical consequence of this was a tribute the network paid to itself toward the end of the games, wherein half an hour or so was devoted to descriptions and demonstrations of the network's Herculean efforts...
...This sort of inquiry even extended to their performance...
...Whether through instant replay or slow motion, by means of a camera perched in an unlikely place, or through the good offices of an enterprising interviewer, one always sensed that the Olympics had no life, really, apart from that which ABC gave it...
...The individual effort took second place to the national,but the supposed drama behind the individual effort was what truly interested the reporters...
...Are you pleased or disappointed...
...If coverage of the Winter Olympics is any indication of the needs and wants of the sports-viewing public it is difficult to tell what the sports-viewing public wants...
...For, on the whole, what ABC provided was a keyhole view of the psychology of athletic competition, an inquiry into the mental conditioning of athletes, and the logistics of sport...
...After they would finish, the microphone would find its way into their faces, usually panting for breath, but politely answering the same meaningless questions...
...It was difficult to tell- Between the network's pride in itself, and its sideline cheerleading, politics, at least, took its rightful place in the doings of the Olympics...
...When the United States defeated the Soviet Union in ice hockey, it was as though the whole moral argument of foreign affairs had been settled on the objective court whose judgment counted...
...Pop psychology has been worming its way into the sporting world, and as a means of making the athletes interesting, it has seen more action than it should...
...General Arledge, indeed...
...Perhaps so...
...The argument goes that the manners and mores of the sporting world somehow reflect — or, better yet, sublimate — the primeval instincts of Americans...
...The TV coverage abetted this, for throughout the games it was the national effort — not the individual — that mattered...
...Film of trucks hauling equipment along winding roads, miles of cable stretching through snowy passes, endless control panels and whirring cameras — all were paraded by the reverential hush, presided over by the thoughtful pipesmoking spectacle of Roone Arledge, president of ABC Sports, and the cool commander at the helm, directing his troops with calm and resolution...
...Have you overcome your lack of confidence...
...From a journalistic point of view, this largely defeated the point of coverage, for while we followed the exploits of an American finishing seventh, we did so at the expense of foreigners who came in first, second and third...
...perhaps not...
...Each turned out to be the same as the last, and eventually they piled up, wearily so...
...In another sense, ABC made itself the most conspicuous performer in the games...
...Did you realize, as you flew through the air, that all those hard years of training were now for nothing...
...For each event the viewer was reminded of the possible technical means by which it was brought to the screen...
...It was necessary throughout to describe motivation, to draw parallels between personality and performance, to do, in short, nearly everything apart from simple presentation...
...All of this presumes that athletes are more fascinating than athletics, and the Olympics reminded us, if there was ever any doubt, that such an idea is plainly nonsense...
...We may feel rage about Iran, or outrage about Afghanistan, but on the hockey rink all such matters reduced themselves to simple, nationalistic terms...
...Television is careful in its cultivation of the audience, much more so than the movies...
...PHILIP TERZIAN 25 April 1980: 243...
...Armchair psychoanalysis is usually as wrong as it is right, but it is probably true that television coverage of sports has a more general significance...
...Instead, for each who caught the network's* fancy, there were personality profiles...
...Just as it was thought necessary to make the astronauts interesting people when they clearly were not, it seemed somehow insufficient to present athletes merely in competition...
...For the most part, this is true of all televised sports: the analysis, the insights, the sheer weight of reportage have long since left the spectacle of the game behind...
...The constant tally of U.S...
...Not so, concluded ABC, and for all I know they may be right...
...In quantitative terms, it was colossal...
...But, in pursuit of a workable theme, it is interesting it should have concocted the show that it did...
...It was apparently not enough to watch the skiers ski or the skaters skate...
...ABC, to be sure, is in the business of entertainment, and the length of the games may have mitigated against the intense viewer response any network prefers...
...The Commonweal: 242 viewer is no longer treated to action so much as the saga behind the action, which may be — and often is — decidedly without interest...
...How do you think you did...
...Each athlete, it would seem, was the same age, did nothing but train for the Olympics, had loving, indulgent parents, ran the same miles daily, did the same exercises, grunted, gasped, and grimaced in stolid uniformity...
...This may be inevitable on television...
...As a concert-goer is apt to want to hear the music, it would seem plausible that a sports fan (or any viewer, for that matter) watches the Olympics for simple, perhaps even obvious, reasons...
...It may, on social trends, be slightly behind the times and then compensate by opening the floodgates, but in more immediate matters — such as sports — it can gauge the response more quickly, more accurately, and adapt as necessary...
...But politics, unfortunately, was not all...
Vol. 107 • April 1980 • No. 8
