BBC -- First To Televise Olympics, 60 Years Ago

August 8, 2008

The BBC reminded its viewers today (Friday) that it was the first television network ever to televise an entire Olympic Games -- back in 1948 when the Summer Olympics were held at London's Wembley Stadium. At the time it beamed 68 hours of live, black-and-white coverage -- "an enormous technical achievement" back then -- to the country's 50,000 homes that had television sets. During the coming 17 days, it noted, it will broadcast almost 3,000 hours of live and taped coverage from Beijing in high-definition color TV, plus additional hours on its websites. It said that 437 staff members, ranging from producers to announcers to technical crew members to translators, have been sent from London to cover 192 events in 31 locations.