Ready to Go, but Little to Show

ABC reporters and executives steeled themselves to cover the Olympics by taking practice runs down precipitous worst-case scenarios, but they could hardly have expected the succession of misfortunes--natural, mechanical and even political--that befell the network during the Games' opening week. Said Jim McKay: "You know the old line about the best laid plans of mice and men. I don't know how the mice made out, but the men have had a tough time."

The snow, fog and high winds that twice knocked out the men's downhill ski race eliminated any realistic chance of a U.S. medal to savor during the first four days. ABC concentrated on two successive losses by the U.S. hockey team, and the second game was temporarily and perhaps mercifully blacked out by a power shortage. The six-hour time difference meant that the American setbacks were reported on newscasts well in advance of ABC's programs. And somber news from Moscow and Beirut overshadowed the celebratory glow in Sarajevo.

The early ratings turned out to be almost as bad as the weather. On Tuesday, the first night of prime-time coverage, ABC drew only 18% of the audience, vs. 36% for NBC and 20% for CBS. The opening ceremonies on Wednesday attracted a more gratifying but still modest 27% share of viewers, vs. 26% for NBC and 25% for CBS. Thursday, ABC News and Sports President Roone Arledge, on the scene in Sarajevo, canceled a third hour of coverage because of the shortage of events, and the network's share dropped to about 21%. Said Joel Segal, executive vice president for broadcasting at the Ted Bates advertising "agency: "We expect that ratings will get better, but indications are that they will not be as good as they were for the Innsbruck Games in 1976." Indeed, for the first three days, ratings were at least 25% lower than for the comparable days at Innsbruck.

Network executives, while cautioning that it was too soon to tell, conceded that ABC might provide "make-goods" to sponsors who paid $225,000 per 30-sec. commercial in prime time. Said ABC Vice President George Newi: "If ratings are off significantly, we would probably take care of our customers. But an American hero in there would pick things up."

To their credit, Anchorman McKay and his colleagues rarely let the pressure show, and they made the most of what they had. Eric Heiden's commentary enabled viewers to appreciate subtle differences in style among the competitors in the women's speed skating. ABC compressed Finnish Gold Medalist Marja-Liisa Haemaelaeinen's 10-km cross-country ski race into a montage of snow-hazed spurts of ardent labor that made her final collapse seem an inevitable part of the effort. Hockey Commentator Al Michaels could probably inject excitement into a pinochle game, although he shared in ABC's unrealistic buildup of the young, inexperienced U.S. team. As a taped image showed U.S. Downhill Skier Bill Johnson during a pell-mell training run, he explained each turn of the course and keyed viewers to the danger spots. ABC made sparing and mostly sensible use of its 74 cameras and state-of-the-art electronic whizbangery. Perhaps the best of its effusive yet informative pretaped features followed U.S. Luge Team Alternate Paul Dondaro down the vertiginous course as a tiny camera attached to his body showed how he steered by precise, split-second movements of his head and feet. The much ballyhooed computer graphics, however, added little to a viewer's understanding. At the opening ceremonies, for example, ABC hurtled graphics maps across the screen to pinpoint where lesser-known countries are situated, but the globes were so minute that it was hard to discern even continents. Some of the prepackaged features, put together in the name of world brotherhood, were embarrassing: John Denver crooned a mawkish ballad at a mass grave for 11,000 victims of the Nazis; and McKay, Frank Gifford and Bob Beattie mugged their way through a mock-boozy time-out in a Yugoslav bar.

In all, it was not a start to make ABC cheer. Said Newi: "I wouldn't call it an unmitigated disaster." Once the weather improved and strong U.S. contenders came onscreen, ABC no doubt would recoup. But the network last month agreed to pay a staggering $309 million to broadcast the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary, Alta., vs. $91.5 million for the Sarajevo rights. That means expanding coverage or more than tripling advertising prices. The shaky push-off in Sarajevo may have been a cautionary indication that after the repeatedly profitable thrill of victory, one day there might come the agony of defeat.