1964 Winter Olympics Promotional Spot

Loading the player…

This promotional spot is for the 1964 Winter Olympics (also known as the IX Olympic Winter Games) on ABC, held in Innsbruck, Austria from Wednesday, January 29th through Tuesday, February 9th.


Related Posts

Become a Patron Today

Are you a fan of obscure television? Please support Television Obscurities on Patreon by becoming a patron today.

3 Replies to “1964 Winter Olympics Promotional Spot”

  1. There was an orbiting communications satellite by early 1964, but not in a “stationary” orbit.

    As a result, only about 10-12 minutes of each day’s ABC broadcast was sent via satellite.

    However, most events of the 1964 Winter Olympics were held in the morning (local time in Innsbruck), which allowed tape to be shot, edited, and flown back to the U.S. in-time for a prime-time (Eastern time) broadcast.

    Many of the prime-time telecasts were aired from 10 to 11 P.M. EST to insure that the day’s major events could be shown that day in the ‘States.

  2. The film footage (except for the bobsledding) was from the 1960 Winter Games at Squaw Valley.

    Squaw Valley refused to build a bobsled/luge course, so there was no bobsled competition at the 1960 Winter Olympics, and the introduction of luge was delayed until 1964. The bobsled footage was probably from some other international meet in the early 1960’s.

    Squaw Valley’s decision not to build a bobsled course badly hurt the U.S. in that sport for years to come.

  3. The music in this spot, while one of fanfare, was not the music eventually used as the theme music of ABC’s 1964 Winter Olympic coverage.

    It’s been said that ABC Sports head Roone Arledge didn’t like it, so one day a few weeks before the Olympics began, he gave one of his aides some money and sent him to a record store to buy several symphonic LP’s.

    Playing those records back on his stereo, Arledge found that to him, one piece of music screamed “Olympics” and he decided to use it as his Olympics theme.

    You know that piece of music: It’s the opening of “Bugler’s Dream”, which has been the theme music for most American telecasts of the Olympics (first on ABC and more recently on NBC) since 1964.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.