Back to Tokyo 1964: The First Satellite Games

All sporting achievements in Tokyo should be presented to viewers and listeners around the world. The radio used terrestrial connections: via Tokyo to Honolulu, Vancouver, Montreal and London. Television had a novelty: the Games in 1964 were the first in which images of matches were distributed around the world via satellite. At that time, about 600 million people around the world watched the Olympic Games in Japan.

American initiative

Reporter Edwin Cornelissen spoke with Martijn Lindenberg, who was at the time a photographer for NTS, the predecessor to NOS, about the first “Satellite Games.” The satellite link was an American idea. “The Americans have been broadcasting the Olympics live for some time. That wasn’t the case in Europe. The satellites were put on air by an American company. The European Broadcasting Union, of which NTS was also a member, could use the use of what would later serve as a director,” said Lindenberg, who later served as a director. and producer and consultant at NOS, “We can then rent a channel with other broadcasters.”

Entire matches went to Holland via satellite. “But also hijacking the events. It was hard to see what was important to us in the Netherlands. We were hoping to see a number of candidates. The advantage with Anton Jesink was that he won a gold medal in a very high sport in Japan. His prestige, so we watched that on TV. “.

Not bad pictures

Some sports were broadcast live in Japan, and others were filmed. “The Japanese and European Broadcasting Union discussed the images sent to Europe. That was a different signal than the one that was destined for the US and Japan. If you look at the quality of the images now, it’s not too bad. It just turned gray and was delivered too late. Not done Something about that only later. But the Japanese are not stupid people and they have done a great job there by portraying the sport well,” says Lindenberg.

Lindenberg recalls that there was no critical sports coverage in 1964. “It only came in 1968. Then the games were disrupted by the black power situation. Before that, it was mainly about showcasing the games beautifully and giving a royal comment. Many commentators have had to Recording the photo while they haven’t seen it yet they submitted it: Boom, go ahead, you’re not going to come up with very in-depth comments.”

Thanks to satellite images from Tokyo, the Olympics were also more lively than before in the Netherlands, according to Lindenberg. “It wasn’t like now, the games had programming for fourteen consecutive days. The pieces came and if you could see it live, it was beautiful. TV is there to be able to see where you can’t be: TV. Satellite. It made the world smaller.”