The Importance of Close-Miking in the Olympics

Olympic sound is one of the most important aspects of sports broadcasting. The first Olympics to be televised by BBC was in 1948 when fewer than 100,000 homes had television at the time. One of the first things we implemented in the Olympics was a lot more close-miking. This is where you put a microphone as close as possible to the sound source. If you use this technique you need a lot of microphone because each microphone can only capture a little piece of the whole picture. You get more detail and definition and a hell of a lot better sound.