Tony Verna recently passed away. Verna was an extremely successful TV producer and director, but in the history of TV, we viewers are forever in his debt.
He “invented” instant replay, as much of a part of sporting
contests as the games themselves.
Verna was a young TV producer with CBS in 1963 when the
network broadcast an Army-Navy football game.
Legend has it that Verna told the network that he was able
to pinpoint exact segments of the broadcast on a
videotape being used to record the game and he was able to find what he wanted quickly.
A segment was shown instantly, and instant replay was born.
However, replays on sports telecasts did not begin with Verna. They had been around since the late 1950s.
Although the first notice of a replay I could find was on a "Hockey Night in Canada" broadcast in the late 1950s, it was not of the "instant" variety.
It was a new recording of a play in a game--I don't know which one--that was quickly processed and shown during the broadcast.
But it wasn't instant.
The actual first use of a videotape replay during an athletic contest was in 1960, during a Yankees game versus the Chicago White Sox.
Pitcher Ralph Terry was no-hitting the Chisox, and Yankees announcer Mel Allen was told that he could ask for the technology, because it was felt that the WPIX technicians could deliver it to the broadcast.
When a White Sox player got the first hit, Allen remembered what he was told, and a few minutes later, the replay of the hit was shown on the broadcast.
Not instant, but a replay nonetheless, certainly opening the door for Verna and the technology he and CBS used three years later.
So while Verna was the first to use instant replay, he was not the first to use replay, per se. I think a lot of obituaries overlooked that point, and it is a major one.
That aside, what would sports programming be without the use of video replay? Today, we get all the angles, slow motion, etc.
Verna could not have imagined what instant replay would do to a broadcast, but now instant replay is even used by all the pro leagues to make sure their officials do not blow a call.
He truly opened the door for the high-tech broadcasts we have today, and also the ability we have to personally record anything we want off of our own televisions.
So the name might not be familiar, but his most famous application certainly is.
It was a new recording of a play in a game--I don't know which one--that was quickly processed and shown during the broadcast.
But it wasn't instant.
The actual first use of a videotape replay during an athletic contest was in 1960, during a Yankees game versus the Chicago White Sox.
Pitcher Ralph Terry was no-hitting the Chisox, and Yankees announcer Mel Allen was told that he could ask for the technology, because it was felt that the WPIX technicians could deliver it to the broadcast.
When a White Sox player got the first hit, Allen remembered what he was told, and a few minutes later, the replay of the hit was shown on the broadcast.
Not instant, but a replay nonetheless, certainly opening the door for Verna and the technology he and CBS used three years later.
So while Verna was the first to use instant replay, he was not the first to use replay, per se. I think a lot of obituaries overlooked that point, and it is a major one.
That aside, what would sports programming be without the use of video replay? Today, we get all the angles, slow motion, etc.
Verna could not have imagined what instant replay would do to a broadcast, but now instant replay is even used by all the pro leagues to make sure their officials do not blow a call.
He truly opened the door for the high-tech broadcasts we have today, and also the ability we have to personally record anything we want off of our own televisions.
So the name might not be familiar, but his most famous application certainly is.
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