BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS: DAY 3 : TELEVISION : Triple Option Provides a Golden Opportunity

Going in, putting the Olympics on pay-per-view alongside 161 hours of free coverage on NBC sounded like a bad idea.

Skeptics asked, why would anyone pay for something they can get free?

But now, after two days of viewing, the feeling here is that the TripleCast is triple terrific.

Here are three reasons why:

--Live, continuous coverage.

--No commercials.

--Flexibility. If one channel isn’t offering what you want, odds are one of the other two is.

The downside, of course, is the $125 price tag--$131.25 with tax, plus a $10 processing charge if you order by phone.

The other thing is, most people don’t have the time to watch nonstop coverage.

But those who do will get their money’s worth.

This might be the biggest thing to happen to sports television since instant replay.

Television has finally figured out how to cover an Olympics--a pay-per-view option for those not satisfied with network coverage.

There are bugs, no question. But nothing that can’t be worked out.

The TripleCast pictures provided by the world feed are clear, and in some ways superior to what you get from NBC.

NBC also uses the world feed, but supplements it with a lot of bells and whistles--athlete profiles, other glitzy features, music videos, a lot of talking heads and the like.

The TripleCast coverage is sports television coverage as it was when television simply covered an event. There are no floor-level camera angles or zoom-in close-ups that destroy the flow of the action.

And all of that is welcomed.

A random sampling of Southern California cable companies on Monday indicated about a 1% buy rate, which is about half of what was hoped for.

Continental, which serves about 300,000 homes equipped with addressable cable systems, has sold about 3,000 TripleCast packages, which is 1%.

“We did a lot of business over the weekend,” Continental spokesman John Gibbs said. “But we also did a lot of business today. People came in who said they had watched on Sunday at a neighbor’s and liked what they saw.

“We’ve had a real positive customer response.”

Another major Southern California cable company, Century, reports a .8% buy rate--1,500 of 160,000 addressable homes.

Cencom in the San Gabriel Valley has sold 1,100 packages out of 106,000, which is a little more than 1%.

The buy rate in some of the more affluent communities, such as Arcadia, is about 2%. Tom Prevette, the general manager of Cablevision of Arcadia, said that his system, with 10,000 addressable homes, has sold 205 packages.

“I can tell you that, speaking as a consumer, I was skeptical,” Prevette said. “But it’s won me over. It’s fantastic. I really like being able to flip around among the three channels.”

Another plus is the announcing. Chick Hearn, for example, has been in top form.

One complaint about Hearn and partner Steve Jones, though. They let Charles Barkley off too easy for the elbow he threw on Sunday. This isn’t the NBA, and they should have realized how inappropriate Barkley’s action was for the Olympics.

And in the bound-to-happen department, Hearn at least twice called the U.S. basketball team the Lakers during the first game against Angola. He quickly corrected himself both times, and made no such slips during Monday’s game against Croatia.

Gymnastics commentators Peter Vidmar and Julianne McNamara, and swimming announcers Jim Donovan and Rowdy Gaines have been among the TripleCast standouts.

Being able to watch Pablo Morales’ victory in the 100-meter butterfly Monday provided a real thrill. Morales, however, couldn’t be interviewed until later, in a studio with Ahmad Rashad.

No on-site interviews is one of the bugs. The problem is the TripleCast people do not have any of their own cameras in Barcelona.

At the basketball venue, TripleCast viewers could see NBC’s Quinn Buckner interviewing Magic Johnson--about his injury, no doubt--after the U.S. team’s victory over Croatia, but there was no way to hear what Johnson was saying.

Boxing commentator Wallace Matthews conducted a ringside interview with U.S. welterweight Pepe Reilly on Monday, but there were no pictures. Viewers watched a fight while listening to the interview.

Also, the TripleCast’s news-gathering abilities are limited. While NBC volleyball announcers Paul Sunderland and Chris Marlowe, as well as Dick Enberg and Will McDonough, were all over the controversy surrounding Sunday’s U.S.-Japan game, the TripleCast virtually ignored this hot story on Monday.

But, overall, everyone who has seen the TripleCast seems to agree--it’s much better than expected.

Prediction: Sometime early in the next century, probably after direct broadcast becomes a reality and provides as many as 150 channels, the Olympics will come in over as many as 10 channels, not merely three. And then, nothing will be missed.

Wimbledon and other multifaceted sports events could be covered much the same way.

As long as pay-per-view only provides viewers with a viable option, and doesn’t replace free television, it is proving a good thing.