CBS Gets ’92 Winter Games

CBS, which hasn’t televised the Olympics since 1960, on Tuesday won U.S. broadcast rights to the 1992 Winter Games in France for what sources said was $243 million.

NBC, which paid $300 million for the 1988 Summer Olympics that it will televise in September, only bid $175 million for the 1992 Winter Games, sources said. ABC stunned the sports world Monday by refusing to bid at all.

ABC, which has televised 10 of the last 12 Olympic Games, paid $309 million for this year’s Winter Olympics in Calgary. Despite high ratings for its coverage in February, ABC suffered a reported $60-million loss on the venture.

At at appearance at a Hollywood Radio and Television Society luncheon in Beverly Hills Tuesday, Gene F. Jankowski, president of the CBS Broadcast Group, said obtaining the Olympic rights “is a symbol that CBS is going to be a key player--not only today and tomorrow, but for many, many years to come.”

Following the speech, Jankowski was asked why CBS considered it a good move to buy the Winter Games rights since ABC lost so much money on it this year. He said the price CBS paid is “much more attractive than what ABC paid in Calgary” and added that the purchase is a big boost for CBS’ affiliated TV stations as well as for the network.

On the eve of the opening of bidding here Monday for rights to the 1992 Winter Games, ABC told the International Olympics Committee that it wouldn’t take part because it didn’t want to be involved in what the network said had become a round-by-round auction.

In a statement released to the news media, ABC said that for the past two years it had “repeatedly” told Olympics officials that the network “would not engage in a multistage auction.”

ABC officials have complained that the bidding procedure had been changed from one round to several rounds in order to get higher prices. Olympics officials have said they considered the process fair.

CBS’ last Olympics telecasts in 1960 were the Winter Games in Squaw Valley, Calif., and the Summer Games in Rome.