By Mike Hughes
Gannett News Service

ANCHORS AWAY!

NBC prime time: Bob Costas hosts from 8 p.m. to midnight nightly. It's his fifth time in that spot; this time, he gets to talk about Greece, where his grandfather and grandmother were born. NBC late night: Pat O'Brien hosts during the first week from 12:35 a.m. to 2 a.m.; Dan Hicks, who covers swimming during the first week, hosts late at night the second week. O'Brien started in sports, before moving to the J-Lo and Mary-Kate world of anchoring "Access Hollywood." When the Olympics end, he starts preparing to anchor "The Insider," an "Entertainment Tonight" spin-off this fall. NBC daytime: Jim Lampley anchors from 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. It's his 12th Olympics. USA Network. Lampley anchors, 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Mary Carillo takes over the all-day coverage on the weekend of Aug. 21-22, when most of the tennis gold medals are awarded. MSNBC: Lester Holt, working his first Olympics, anchors with O'Brien from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. CNBC: Fred Roggin hosts from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.; he's a longtime Los Angeles sportscaster, also known for his comedy shows built around sports bloopers. Carillo anchors this weekend's coverage. Bravo: Carillo and Inga Hammond anchor from 5 a.m. to noon with Hammond also doing 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Telemundo: Jessi Losada anchors the Spanish-language coverage from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. Andres Cantor joins him when he's not calling soccer matches.

ANALYZE THIS

Here are the analysts for sports best known to U.S. viewers: BASEBALL: Matt Vasgersian, voice of the San Diego Padres, with Joe Magrane. BASKETBALL: Mike Breen with Doug Collins as men's analysts and Ann Meyers as women's analyst. Both have been Olympians and Collins went on to be a pro coach. Craig Sager is the reporter. BEACH VOLLEYBALL: Chris Marlowe with Karch Kiraly. Heather Cox is the reporter. BOXING: Bob Papa with Teddy Atlas. Kenny Rice is the reporter. DIVING: Ted Robinson and Cynthia Potter. Reporters will be former UC track star Lewis Johnson, Melissa Stark (a former football sideline reporter) and Andrea Joyce, a veteran sports reporter who worked the CBS coverage when her husband, Harry Smith, was anchoring. GYMNASTICS: Al Trautwig with Tim Daggett and Elfi Schlegel. Joyce is the reporter. SOCCER: J.P. Dellacamera and Marcelo Balboa are the men's analysts and Lori Walker is the women's analyst. Viewers can switch to Spanish-language Telemundo for Andres Cantor, famous for rumbling "GOOOAL!" SOFTBALL: Vasgersian, with ex-Olympian Dot Richardson. SWIMMING: Dan Hicks with Rowdy Gaines - who won three gold medals in 1984 - as analyst; Stark is the reporter. TRACK & FIELD: Tom Hammond will work with several analysts - Dwight Stones, Carol Lewis, Marty Liquori and Lewis Johnson. In addition, Larry Rawson calls the women's marathon and Tom Feuer calls the walks. Bob Neumeier is the track reporter. TENNIS: Barry MacKay and Jim Courier, with Len Berman reporting. More expertise will come from Mary Carillo, who will anchor for USA Network Aug. 21-22, the big days for tennis gold. VOLLEYBALL: Jim Watson and Mike Todd. Other TV analyst news: • Other general sports reporters include Billy Bush and Nancy Newman; assigned by NBC News are Bob Hager and Kelly O'Donnell. • The HDTV channel has a separate lineup of commentators, including Matt Devlin, Craig Hummer and Paul Sunderland. • Telemundo will have Edgar Lopez doing much of its play-by-play, with Andres Cantor, Jessi Losada and Alejandro Blanco doing soccer and Rene Giraldo doing boxing. Analysts include Adrian Garcia-Marquez (baseball and basketball) and Mara Montero (beach volleyball and walks). For boxing, Raul Marquez will be analyst, with Claudia Trejos as reporter.

Here's a primer on this year's Olympic telecasts:

• When: The opening ceremony will air at 8 p.m. Friday on NBC. The closing ceremony is Aug. 29; in between, the coverage will sprawl over NBC and six of its cable or broadcast channels.

• The channels: They are CNBC, MSNBC, USA Network, Bravo, Telemundo and the separate high-digital signal sent by many NBC stations.

• What's missing: NBC also owns the Sci Fi Channel, which isn't scheduled to air Olympic coverage. That channel would be helpful if the games become intergalactic. Or if ancient Greeks return via time travel. Or if pole-vaulters begin to vanish in mid-air.

• Who gets these channels: Most cable homes. USA airs in 88 million homes, which is almost all the ones with cable. CNBC reaches 86 million homes, MSNBC 82 million, and Bravo 76 million.

"Bravo picked up another four or five million homes when it was first announced that they were going to carry the Olympics," says Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Sports.

The other two channels are harder to define. NBC's high-definition channel must be launched by individual stations; NBC says its high-definition signal is within reach of 80 percent of TV homes. Telemundo, a Spanish-language network, is on a combination of 47 stations and almost 450 cable systems; combining them, it says it reaches 91 percent of Hispanics in the United States.

• The anchor: That's Bob Costas, again. It will be his fourth time hosting the Summer Olympics, plus one stint with the winter games.

• The time gap: The games are in Athens, seven time zones away. At 8 p.m. EDT, it's 3 a.m. in Greece.

That means anything being shown in primetime is tape-delayed. However, some late night events will air live; 1 a.m. EDT is 8 a.m. in Athens. Most of the events shown in the morning or afternoon will be live.

Things were much worse when the games were in Australia four years ago, with a 15-hour difference, Costas says. "We were presenting packaged presentations of what had happened literally the day before."

• Broadcast times: If you only get NBC, you'll still have 226 hours of Olympics over 17 days. By comparison, the 1992 games had 171.5 hours; the 1976 ones had 76.5 hours.

During weekdays, NBC will cover the Olympics from 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., from 8 p.m. to midnight and from 12:35 a.m. to 2 a.m.; it will rerun some of the coverage from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. and its "Today" show will have an Olympic emphasis.

• Cable times: During the week, MSNBC will air Olympic events from 2 a.m. to 7 a.m.; USA will step in from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., then MSNBC will return from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. CNBC - which is showing financial news during the business day - takes over from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. The others: Bravo from 5 a.m. to noon, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and midnight to 1 a.m. Telemundo airs coverage from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.; the high-definition channel will be 24 hours a day, some of it reruns.

• Overall hours: That adds up to 71 hours of coverage on a typical weekday, if you count the reruns. Overall, NBC says it will have 1,210 hours over seven channels; in 2000, it had 441.5 hours over three channels.

• Specific events: The exact details are still being worked out. They'll be listed on two Web sites, nbcolympics.com and tvguide.com - and on the TV Guide Channel, which airs on many cable systems.

The general plans have been set, however. Here they are, for each network:

NBC

There are 28 Olympic sports, but Ebersol expects 60 percent of primetime coverage to stick to four of them - swimming, diving, gymnastics and track and field. By no coincidence, those are sports (along with basketball) in which Americans expect to do well.

Other sports will pop in occasionally, he says, especially such telegenic ones as beach volleyball. "They built a stadium right on the sea that's drop-dead great."

Telemundo

This will be the first time the Olympics have a Spanish-language broadcast in the United States. There will be 169.5 hours, emphasizing soccer and boxing, plus the final two rounds of baseball. The soccer coverage will include Andres Cantor, noted for his rumbling pronouncement of "Goooal!"

USA Network

There will be only 49 hours of coverage, starting at 8 a.m. Sunday. That's when the women's cycling road race will start winding through Athens.

The next weekend, Aug. 21-22, USA will carry the tennis finals. The network also expects to have live coverage of most U.S. basketball games, for men and women.

CNBC

On weekdays, this will be the home of boxing coverage. On weekends, boxing moves to MSNBC. CNBC - with 111 hours total - will range from beach volleyball to soccer and taekwondo.

MSNBC

This becomes the boxing network on weekends. During the week, MSNBC - with 133.5 hours total - ranges afar. It has basketball, soccer, beach volleyball, wrestling, canoeing, rowing and weightlifting,

BRAVO

There will be 122 hours, including tennis, equestrian, sailing, archery, badminton, judo, handball, table tennis, synchronized swimming and the track cycle races.

HDTV

The idea of doing high-definition coverage came late, Ebersol says. Broadcasters from other countries were surveyed.

"They (said), 'We want to have HD coverage of track and field, swimming and diving, gymnastics, the opening and closing ceremonies, the basketball medal rounds and the soccer stadium,' " Ebersol says. "That takes place in four stadiums that are contiguous to each other."

Those sports will show up on the high-definition channel with the others being ignored for now. The catch is that the same sports are on NBC's primetime. HDTV won't be showing them until afterward.

Things will be easier in 2008, Ebersol says, with every sport shown in high-definition.