1996 & 2000 Olympics

Longtime lurker first time poster here.

I was wondering just how the TV coverage for the 1996 or 2000 Olympics would have looked like had Manchester won the bid. Given 2012 had brilliant coverage one wonders just how the games would have been presented.

The short answer is nobody knows. Nobody will ever know.

What we do know is what actually went out and assuming everything else played out the same way, it would have probably looked like what actually went out (and of course London 2012 may not have happened at all in that timeline):

The 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games provide probably the nearest insight we could get - though a much lower key event.

They played a key role in us securing the 2012 gig I think. Manchester 2002 was widely seen as a very good model of wider community involvement in hosting events, and definitely inspired future elements in the UK like the London Gamesmakers.

I love those 2000 titles; a beautiful orchestral score is featured and fantastic visuals, especially the live integration of the presenters into the fly over, I remember being amazed seeing the studio sequence as a kid for the first time, it made it appear like they were broadcasting from a monsterous warehouse... incredibly creative.

One thing that might have been different if Manchester had won the 1996 bid is ITV may have hung around as an Olympic broadcaster and coverage would have been shared with the BBC, or Granada may have even bankrolled an exclusive bid.

Had it been 2000 then the BBC already had exclusive rights at the time of the bid but with it being the early days of digital TV there might have been a push to get a multiscreen service out earlier. Manchester 2002 was one of the first events to offer interactive streams.


Re: the Sydney intro. Always felt the opening fanfare on that is something the BBC could have used with other Olympic themes - it works with most and would be a way of linking the games together but still giving them unique themes.

Not the most encouraging way to welcome a new member. I think it's a very interesting question that's provoked some very interesting comments.

I think the clue was in "long time lurker", we don't really do "hello welcome to TV Forum, enjoy your stay" here. Last person I did that to (Riaz) proceeded to ask a bunch of questions about a certain archive and then wasn't satisfied with any of the answers about it.

But anyway the OP wanted to know what the coverage "would" have looked like had Manchester won the bid. And it's true - nobody knows as it's alternative history. Its like asking what CPV-TV would have done after 1993, what idents, programmes, how the news would have looked, who would have anchored, etc, and again alternative history, everything would have speculation.

I spoke to someone who worked on the BBC's Sydney coverage. Apparently the Olympic rings in the virtual background were rendered in the wrong order, and it was only spotted the day before the games started. His flight home was cancelled until he came up with a fix! He also told me that they got a lot of comments from people who assumed the studio was in the UK, rather than the IBC - I think the backdrop did include some beauty shots, but they may not have been live.

Perhaps this thread might be a good place to ask about the 1996 bid - I'm almost certain I watched the bid announcement live on TV - there was a stage in Manchester's Albert Square, it was daylight, and included a performance by James. I can't see anything on Genome for the bid date - or pretty much anything else on the internet about the announcement, for that matter.

The 2000 bid had a bit more coverage in the schedules: a Blue Peter special and the announcement live with Des Lynam in Monte Carlo. There's also footage from Nine News showing a big crowd in Castlefield, and it was dusk.

Am I just misremembering and conflating the two things?

I imagine the actual backdrops would be recorded but imagine the virtual camera pan must have been generated live/recorded shortly before each opening as it featured the presenters on the sofa in their outfits of that day.

I definitely think ITV would have had some input to both the games as I’m pretty sure I’ve read before that Granada studios were to be the IBC for the games. They would have almost definitely been involved in the 92 games had they been awarded to Birmingham.

As for my question as to whether anyone knows maybe I should have put what do people think the games would have been presented like on television. .

ISTR that the views were live - and generated from cameras in a Sydney apartment hired for the purpose. It wasn't feasible to run a studio there, but it was possible to rig 'view cams'. I may be wrong, and the cameras may have been recorded, but there was definitely a write-up (probably in Ariel) at the time covering it.

Granada also showed the 2000 announcement live, moving Emmerdale to 5.10 to cover it. Unfortunately the only thing I remember about the 1996 annoucement is the shot of the chair of the bid crossing out "1996" on their logo and writing "2000" on it.