Olympics give not only sport but greed bad name - Olympics' new schedule reflects commercialism - Column

National Catholic Reporter, March 18, 1994 by Danny Duncan Collum

The big television events of the past few weeks were all nonfiction. There was the usual apocalypse of blizzards, earthquakes and Middle Eastern massacres. Then there was the first great spy scandal of the post-Cold War era. And don't forget the Grammy Awards. But mostly there were the Winter Olympics and TV's elevation of the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan affair, first from minor-league cop show to melodrama and then upward to the most rarefied reaches of the absurd.

But first the big news. People watched the Winter Olympics by the millions. Even when Tonya and Nancy weren't on, CBS' prime-time coverage topped the Nielsen charts - despite the fact the Olympics were on just two years ago.

We got this midterm treat because the Olympics people have realigned their schedule: From now on, the Summer and Winter Games will fall in alternate even-number years instead of both in leap years, as they had since the time of the Greeks - or at least since the time of the first Greek-American restaurants.

That means, like congressional reelection campaigns and Christmas shopping, the Olympics will never end. By the time the highlight films from the last Olympics hit the home-video market, the qualifying trials for the next one will be well under way.

This change, like most of American life, is ultimately the result of the grand confluence of interests between the television and advertising industries. The Big Three networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) love special events like the Olympics because they give old broadcasting dinosaurs a reason to exist in today's cable-ready, narrowcasting world. If the liturgical year had been planned by network executives, there would be no such thing as Ordinary Time. There would be only Christmas, Easter and Ratings Sweeps.

The networks' mission these days is to lure viewers from the cable-wired half of the American public. The reason is obvious: The half that can pony up for cable is the half with the disposable income - and the half advertisers seek. The other half can be taken for granted or left for dead.

The Big Three especially love the Olympics because they draw an audience that cuts across the demographics that usually divide the TV public into the class, race, gender and generational fiefdoms of A&E, CNN, MTV, VH-1, Lifetime and Black Entertainment. Everyone likes to watch people from faraway places with unusual names go fast and jump high.

In addition, the advertising industry increasingly feeds on instant celebrity. Speedskater Bonnie Blair will already be on the corn flakes box by the time this is read.

This year, the celebrity commodification process got a jump start from the assault on Nancy Kerrigan. Because of all the pregames hype and pathos, Kerrigan was an advertising emblem before she set foot in Norway. With advertisements for Campbell's soup, Disney World and Reebok, she logged far more airtime during the commercial breaks than she (or archrival Tonya) did in the actual games.

Kerrigan also has endorsement deals with Revlon cosmetics, Ray-Ban sunglasses, Seiko watches and Evian water. Despite her athletic brilliance and personal endurance, Kerrigan already has ceased to be a person in the public mind. She is an advertising image, like Joe Camel or the Eveready bunny. And this is only the beginning of the exploitation.

We can only wonder at what point in the commodification process the young woman will cease to be a person to herself. We can also wonder whether the pre-Olympic Kerrigan gold rush will ever be repeated. Advertisers may routinely lock in Olympic prospects at the trial stage, covering their bets at the win, place and show windows.

Of course, Kerrigan didn't bring home the gold for her corporate country. She was outskated by a Ukrainian teenager whose whole life makes a whack on the knee seem like a trip to Disney World. But the CBS announcers left us with the firm impression that Kerrigan may have been robbed. And besides, the Ukrainian kid is totally unmarketable: bad hair, no English, the works.

The Ukrainian victory and the associated griping about the Eastern European judges did arouse a brief but startling moment of nostalgia for the days when the Olympics were an arena of Cold War political competition. In the new world order there is peace, love and unity on Mt. Olympus but only under the big tent of the Yankee dollar.

One thing is sure: With the numbers CBS racked up from Lillehammer, Olympic hype will not subside in this century. Not only did every night top the charts, but the Wednesday night when Harding and Kerrigan both skated drew the fourth-largest American television audience in history: more than 126 million viewers.

The popularity of the Winter Games broadcast is unfathomable. In the past two months I've seen enough snow and ice on my own front porch to last a lifetime. I can't imagine anyone wanting to watch people cavort in the cold and wet for pleasure, of all things.

But duty prevailed, and I watched. I also watched the "CBS Evening News" with Dan Rather and Connie Chung, which was close to the same thing. The network sent Connie to Norway on the plane with Harding and turned a good quarter of every broadcast into little more than hype for the evening broadcast cast of the games. In Norway, the the once-reputable network also reminded us of its long-dormant capacity for documentary filmmaking. There were endless background featurettes on the athletes and their countries.