Content area
Full Text
MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD WILL HAVE THEIR EYES AND EARS TRAINED on Salt Lake City for most of February, when the market will play host to the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. The international and national Olympic committees and officials from state and local government have overseen the construction of several state-of-the-art athletic and housing facilities in the Salt Lake area over the past several years in preparation for the Games. At the Olympic Medals Plaza downtown, major entertainment acts will perform live in the evenings throughout the Games (Feb. 8-24) including the Dave Matthews Band, Foo Fighters, Marc Anthony, Sheryl Crow, Creed, 'NSYNC and the Temptations. The Olympics are expected to attract 500,000 to 1 million visitors, whose spending should provide a major economic boost to the state of Utah.
Olympic and local government officials have faced a series of challenges in their planning for the biggest event in the history of Salt Lake City. A scandal involving the bidding process that awarded the Games to Salt Lake has left some permanent tarnishes, and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks heightened concerns about security, forcing organizers to expand procedures to ensure the safety of those who will participate in and attend the competitions.
Salt Lake City has some experience, albeit on a smaller scale, with hosting major events. Each January, a Who's Who of Hollywood elite flock to the area to attend Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival in nearby Park City, about 25 miles from Salt Lake on the other side of the Wasatch Mountains (this year's Sundance concluded on Jan. 20). And for the past 17 years, the Utah Winter Sports Park in Park City has hosted the annual Utah Winter Games, which attract top-flight athletes from around the world.
Salt Lake City is the 35th-largest market in the country with 782,960 television households, according to Nielsen Media Research. Salt Lake's TV outlets serve all of Utah as well as parts of Wyoming, Idaho and Nevada. The market boasts the most-watched 10 p.m. newscasts in the country, measured by homes using television (HUT) and persons using television (PUT), Nielsen reports.
The local TV station that stands to benefit the most from the Olympics is Bonneville International's KSL-TV, which as an NBC affiliate will...