The Olympic Games Broadcast

Grey River Argus, 19 April 1948, Page 6

The Olympic Games Broadcast

When the,Olympic Games are held in London this winter the 8.8. C. will have an immense task to fulfil in arranging broadcasting facilities for all the great radio organisations of the world. Reporting the Games will be an intricate affair, for not all seventeen sports included are easy to describe. Games such as football are comparatively simple for they merely involve a knockout competition, but commentaries on swimming and cycling will be more difficult owing to the large number of competitors, most of whom are unknown to the commentators.

The 8.8. C. will broadcast descriptions of the Games in fortv-three different languages, and will provide facilities for broadcasts by the commentators of the competing nations. The provision of adequate broadcasting facilities for so many speakers is a major operation for which the 8.8. C. is equipping a radio centre at Wembley, where a large number of the events will be held. Here too will be the television headquarters for the Games. This radio centre is the former Palace of Arts, and will consist of eight studios, twenty recording channels and a control room capable of passing thirty-two simultaneous broadcasts to the European trunk-line exchange of the Post Office, to Radio Terminal—the Post Offices transmitting exchange which deals with all out-going wireless circuits, or to the 8.8.C.’s own transmitters. High quality circuits are needed all the way from each commentator’s microphone to the transmitter and every commentator must cues. Electrical equipment is also nehave a return circuit for taking his cessary at each microphone to amplify the speaker’s voice, and to “mix” it with the noises from the crowd that listeners will want to hear. Such facilities, varying according to the events, are being installed in some thirty places and in and around London, ’ with positions not only for speakers at the microphone, but also for additional people collecting information that will be used in reports to be broadcast later. In Wembley Stadium there are no less than thirty positions for commentators, while at Bisley there will be only one microphone, as shooting is one of the sports which does not lend itself to a running commentary, and a single microphone should be enough for re-, ports after the events. | Work on the provision of these facilities has been geing on. for some time now, and will grow in volume until the Games are over. Much of the organisation has been none by the 8.8.C.’s Outside Broadcasting Department’, which will have its work more than doubled while the Games are in progress. Nevertheless it is looking forward to them eagerly, and to the onportunity they will provide of meeting sports broadcasters from all over the world and serving their needs to the fullest extent.