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It will be remembered as the long hot summer of the TV tube. From the Bicentennial blitz to the last flicker of the Republican Convention, the OFF knob will never get a chance. Midway through this sizzling season is the sports fan's ultimate midsummer's dream: 74 hours of Olympian extravaganza.

In the U.S. the Olympics are the exclusive turf--and track, pool and arena--of ABC. The Montreal Games will be ABC's sixth Olympics of the past eight. For the rights to beam the competition into the U.S. and to provide a "visual feed" to Latin America, ABC paid the Olympic organizing committee (COJO) $25 million. To produce a U.S.-oriented version of the Games--through its own staff and technical facilities--will cost ABC another $10 million. But don't fret for ABC's exchequer; at $72,000 a minute, sponsors--the three biggest are Sears, Schlitz and Chevrolet--should pay the total $35 million bill. Says ABC Sports Spokesman Irving Brodsky: "We'll break even. The Olympics don't make money, but they contribute a great deal--immeasurably--to the rise in ABC's prestige." And to the rise in its Nielsen ratings. If the Munich Games are any indication, roughly 45% of the prime-time audience, as much as the other two networks combined, will be glued to ABC during the Olympic fortnight.

To ensure this, ABC has embarked on the most ambitious TV project in history. Virtually all of the network's prime time (7:30-11 p.m., E.S.T.) on week nights, plus most weekend afternoons and evenings, will be devoted to the Games.

With 21 sports on the Olympic agenda, ABC could fill the time merely by televising athletes in action, an approach that would produce a yawn heard round the world. Says the network's planning director for the Games, Geoff Mason: "The Olympics are much more than two weeks of moving bodies. This is a convocation of mankind unique in the world, and we have to get that across. The participants are talented people, and to bring them out as people is as important as broadcasting the events." ABC will use interviews with nearly 70 athletes that were filmed during the past 18 months in a dozen countries.

The final responsibility for what is shown belongs to Executive Producer Roone Arledge, who will be watching 32 monitors in ABC's control center. Explains Mason: "Once we hit the switch, Arledge will have to make instant program judgments." Another associate describes Arledge as "the guy who has to blend it all into one piece. If he does it well, it's a symphony. If not, it's just a lot of noise."

A conductor is only as good as his orchestra, and Arledge has given himself an Olympian team of about 30 commentators--not too many woodwinds, please--complemented by a crew of 470, including directors, cameramen, technicians. Anchor man is Jim McKay, the Walter Cronkite of TV sports, who, in a tempo as neatly clipped as his hair, will provide an overview and summaries of events.

Track and field will be handled by Keith Jackson, assisted by Experts Marty Liquori (the distance runner injured in the Olympic trials), Brian Oldfield (a former Olympic shot-putter), Bob Seagren (of pole vault and superstar fame), O.J. Simpson (he ran sprints before sweeps) and Wyomia Tyus (100-meter gold medalist in 1964 and 1968). Jackson, along with Bill Flemming and former Olympic Stars Mark Spitz, Donna de Varona and Micki King, will cover swimming and diving, while Chris Schenkel with Cathy Rigby Mason, America's Olga Korbut, will report gymnastics. Boxing and freestyle wrestling will be called by familiar Mouth Howard Cosell and Face Frank Gifford, respectively. For basketball, Old Pros Curt Gowdy and Bill Russell will be at the mike. Coaches of several sports will also assist.

Technical support has been provided by the truckload: actually, seven 40-ft. trailers. To broadcast from 24 different sites, ABC will be using 25 color cameras, including five mobile units and four Electronic Sports Gatherers--minicam-eras with backpack power sources. The ESGs, never used for live broadcasting at an Olympics before, should give ABC the flexibility it believes is essential.

The operation will be controlled from a prefabricated, soundproofed TV headquarters that includes two full-sized studios, control rooms and a telecine center with twelve videotape machines and a slow-motion converter. No fewer than 36 tape editors will be on the job there, with 18 more in the field.

In addition to all this, ABC will be aided by CBC's 104 cameras. The Canadian Olympic Radio-TV Organization (ORTO), with a staff of 1,850, will supply video coverage--as many as twelve live signals simultaneously to broadcasters from 70 countries--that will be beamed abroad via three satellites. Says Mason: "We've created a monster--but a friendly one."

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