A Fool’s Wisdom

“1960 Winter Games. CBS paid $50,000 for the right to broadcast the games in the United States, and this marked the first time the Olympic Games were televised.”

In response to Wikiality, a friend sent me the above quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympics_on_television.

With the right context, the wikiality is likely true, but you only need the most basic knowledge of world history to believe that an earlier Olympics was the first televised. I’m no history buff, and I know that footage of the Olympics in Nazi controlled Germany was televised.

The reference for that wikiality 1960 Winter Games truth is “Olympics and Television” published by the Museum Broadcast Communications, an American organization. The article appears completely focused on American television. The article begins “Since their first telecast in 1960, the Olympic games have enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with television.” That would seem to be the origin of the fact.

Olympic.org, “the official website of the Olympic Movement” makes no mention of television for the 1960 Winter games article. Articles on other sites, such as “Television Sports Milestones –– A Chronology Of An Industry” don’t include the 1960 Winter as a milestone.

There are numerous sources that dispute that fact:

• From an Olympic.org article, “The 1936 Olympics were also the first to be broadcast on a form of television.”
• From a TVHistory.tv article, “1936 German (Berlin) Olympics … This marked the first live television coverage of a sports event in world history.”
• Another article from Olympic.org includes, “The 1948 London Games were the first to be shown on home television, although very few people in Great Britain actually owned sets.”

It seems there is no strong support the “1960 Winter Games [...] marked the first time the Olympic Games were televised.”