European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 9, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse 2 us America shot continued from Page 17 years but come Lillehammer we will again run into hard Luck Jansen and heavy medal Queen Blair who simply refuses to Jose. Even More there is the Chance the United states will see Kristen Talbot who recently donated Bone marrow to her ill brother. In Albertville female athletes were America s saving Grace and that figures to be the Case in Lillehammer. Short track Speed skating boasts the irrepressible Cathy Turner former biker songwriter and nightclub crooner who was dropped by ice Capanes in time to go after More Gold in Lillehammer. Freestyle skiing offers the Queen of the bumps Donna Weinbrecht whose Gold in the first olympic moguls two years ago gave the sport a monstrous shot in the . Finally there Are the women Down Hillers Julie f Arisen Eva Tward Okens Hilary Lindh and Diann Roffe Stein Rotter though they be had a somewhat disappointing season. And then there Are the sports that hold America s fascination the . Hockey team has one sizable advantage Over the groups that disappointed in Calgary and Albertville Dave Peterson is not the coach. Peterson knew x s and o s but nothing of tact. He was an International incident waiting to happen. The americans Are now led by Yale coach Tim Taylor. The team is better suited to the big rinks and the International game. The russians remain the class of the Competition with Sweden close behind but the americans have a shot at the Bronze. Which brings us to figure skating. Norwegians lost their taste for this sport when their Little Darling Sonja Henie started making goo goo eyes at that Hitler Guy but americans Are utterly fascinated by today s goings on. Even without Gangland knee bashing and the like figure slating has always pulled big ratings. But this Kerrigan Harding stuff is Well irresistible. It is the ultimate morality play Good is. Evil dominated by a Story that has utterly transcended sport. Double salchow and triple toe loops won t matter. This will be the hard copy event a Media zoo with the first two weeks of the olympics As Little More than a Lead in to the big confrontation. There s every Chance neither Kerrigan nor Harding will smell a medal with the likes France s surya Bonaly the Ukraine s Oksana bail and China s Chen la on the premises. The men s Story Likely will Center on the return of 1988 Gold medallist Brian Boitano who led the fight for pro skaters to come Back to the olympics. Hell have a Tough go of it with Canada s Kurt Browning and Elvis Stojko and ukrainian Viktor Petrenko in the Field. This is a unique time in olympic history the first and last time Winter games will be held two years apart. Many of the old protagonists Are Back. Many of the old stories need Only updating. The Saga continues. America will care As it has never cared before. 989lillehammer 94 \ viewers by Mark Braam Scripps Howard news services re you Between the Ages 25 and 54, female and fairly Well off financially then lbs wants you in the olympic viewing audience. And what s More they expect to get you. More women then men watch the Winter olympics said George Schweitzer lbs senior vice president for marketing and communications. It s the opposite of the summer games the kind of sweat sports running jumping throwing. The Winter games Are the Beauty Grace and style sports and that Means 57 percent women watching in prime time. Figure skating is the top female attraction and we play to that they played it Well in Albertville France. An estimated record 184 million watched those 1992 games with lbs winning the audience Battle an unprecedented 15 of 16 nights the previous record was 10 nights an average of 14.7 million women watched the olympics each evening. Why Are women watching the olympics Are More of an entertainment vehicle then a sporting event said Greg Kasparian a research director. A typical sporting event will Appeal to a male audience. But the olympics fit More into our Normal prime time audience which is female. Or. Quinn Murphy Brown murder she wrote in fact our whole monday night schedule you know is very much geared toward Middle aged does that seem to leave men out of the equation said Schweitzer we believe that most of the regular sports watchers men Are a Given and will watch no matter How we cover so How does lbs cover it storytelling seems to be the company line. Olympic figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Paul Wylie perform together earlier this month. A Xvi Winter february 12-27 Lillehammer 94 Kvil Tafjen 22milestohat Eli and Hunder Tyssen Hunde Fosson 9 Miles to Lillehammer 28 Miles to Lillehammer 36 Miles to Lillehammer Lake Kjosa Honor 76 Miles to Oslo Competition comes first but then you have to be a Good storyteller said Mike Pearl coordinating producer. It s the proper blend of Competition storytelling and our philosophy is that these sports and these athletes Are not Well known to the american Public said Mark Harrington a lbs vice president. This is not football baseball basketball your traditional american sports that everyone knows and knows the athletes. The people in these sports Are the Best in the world and the competitions Are won by a Hundredth of a second. Very exciting stuff. But while Joe Montana is a household name these athletes no. Even Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding were not nearly As Well known until this recent episode. Remember this is a prime time audience women not the hard Core sports audience that watches sports All Tonya Harding is determined to go for the Gold. Saturday and sunday afternoon. This is a much broader audience. So we brought along some great storytellers de Bradley Morley safer Charles Kuralt. Abc for years did what they called up close and personal and we do our version of that. We try to find a balance Between the Competition and the stories that go along with even if that leaves the hard Core audience wanting. More.". There Are people who say give me More Competition and some who say More features i love those stories said Harrington. Weary Mohave something for everyone but when you have an audience of 20-30 million in it you can t get the balance right for Schweitzer agreed we can Only talk about our Success two years ago if they did t like the mix Between Competition and feature they would have been tuning out. And they were tuning in. And the mix was show the Competition then Tell a Story about it meet some of the people set it up and pay it off and most people were comfortable with that we know we will not please the qualifying round kind of Purist who wants to see the no. 1 skier and the no. 71 skier the kind who bought the Abc triple cast. We Are after the people who did t buy the triple cast which by the Way there weren t that Many of them. We have to go where the bulk of the Appeal will be and we re very comfortable with that it s not hard to understand the criticism but that s a Small part of the audience and there s nothing else we can say or do about what lbs did was offer ice skating lots of it. I Don t think i la be giving any secrets away by saying that figure skating is the most popular said Kasparian. It s been documented As one of the main reasons Why women say they watch the olympics. In addition it s an up scale audience. So far things have been encouraging in part because of the to do about Kerrigan and Harding. We did t anticipate that but that helped a lot in creating awareness that the games Are coming. Look free publicity any Way you get it is positive. Any press is Good said Schweitzer skating is the highest piece of real estate for us in the olympics. It was the highest thing advertisers could buy even before the Harding Kerrigan thing. Ice skating was a huge audience draw in Albert Pijie it s probably the most anticipated audience of All time we sold out on our advertising in and to make advertisers Happy they Are being guaranteed 18.6 ratings in prime time lbs figured out a Way to cover the games efficiently and keep the maximum number of viewers. To Lay out a blueprint for this year said Pearl we broke Down our Albertville ratings in prime time for each 15-minute period and saw what was working and what was t working. Obviously figure skating worked. We were criticized in the press for having most coverage in the 10 30-11 time Slot but we found that if we ended skating Competition too Early in the evening viewers would go away. We have a responsibility to our sponsors and to a Well balanced show. It s like a movie you Don t put the ending in the first reel Harrington thinks there Are other reasons Why audiences tune in to the olympics. First they Don t pop up every week. They Are special events just like inaugurations elections and space shots. Second it s wintertime it s cold and dark. It s something to come Home to to get caught up in for two weeks to get your kids caught up in. It s february the Christmas season is Over and Spring in t Here and you can look Forward to it each night Schweitzer says the olympics get most of the Light viewers people who generally Don t watch television. They Are there Only to watch the olympics. My Job is to go after the to viewer and that s what we did successfully in the Albertville games because we were Able to project the olympics As a great human Story " hard Luck Dan Jansen is a world record Holder but has no olympic medals. How Socatch the action on to by Craig Martin staff writer viewers from England to Turkey who want to watch the xvii Winter olympics have a variety of options to choose from .,.-. The american forces network will be broadcasting olympic events weekdays from about 2 to 5 . And 1 to 3 . Weekends will feature longer hours. The network will be broadcasting the american forces radio and television service satellite feed of lbs. An officials said some events will be live others will be delayed several hours depending on the time of Day lbs broadcasts the show. The schedule is subject to change depending on the lbs schedule. Opening ceremonies will be broadcast at 2 . Sunday. The eur sport satellite Channel will be broadcasting around the clock coverage beginning with opening ceremonies saturday at 4 . The German television networks Ard and Adf will televise about nine hours of daily coverage beginning Friday night alternating their schedules every other Day from 9 or 10 . To about 11 . In the ., bbl television is offering More than 70 hours of olympic action during the afternoon and prime mid evening slots. Viewers will see exclusive live coverage and highlights a olympic grandstand on Bbc-2, with updates and events included in the regular grandstand and sports night programs on Bbc-1. Bbl Cee fax sport also will provide coverage. Italy s Rai television network will provide around the clock coverage and other italian stations also will offer coverage. Local networks and stations in other countries in Europe also will be providing live coverage. Contributing to Tail report tall writer de reals in Darmstadt. Germany Nancy Tomer in the And sue Polumbo in Naples Italy Snow tops three statues outside Lillehammer s new hockey Arena. A 18 the stars and stripes wednesday february 9,1994 the stars and stripes 19
