From the article posted above:
THE INTANGIBLE ARNOLD:
THE CONTROVERSIAL
MR. OLYMPIA CONTEST OF 1980
By John Fair
"Arguably the most devastating result was the
decision by CBS, in light of the controversy, not to
broadcast the 1980 event. About two weeks prior to the
contest, it sent a film crew to California under producer
Sherman Egan to gather human interest material on four
of the leading contenders- Mentzer, Coe, Zane, and
Dennis Tinerino-and then on to Sydney. A day or two
after the contest, Egan called Coe,
and we (Mike Mentzer, Frank Zane and
myself) met with Sherm. He made it
clear, that in his limited knowledge of
bodybuilding it was clear to him that the
contest was fixed and that they could
never show this on CBS, and they
would not even bother to edit it. He told
me that if I ever cared to watch it, to
come to CBS in New York and that he
would be happy to show me the raw
footage. Late in 1980 . .. I happened to
be in New York, so I called Shenn up,
he set up the viewing, and so on a cold
Saturday afternoon, Chris Dickerson,
Wayne Demilia, his wife and myself,
watched the footage. It was even worse
than I thought. I quickly realized why
CBS could never show it. Sherm
laughed and said about the only thing
they could do with it was possibly put it
on 60 Minutes
Although CBS had one more year on a three year contract
with the IFBB, it did not bother to send a film crew
in 1981 and has not covered a bodybuilding event since
1979."
Boyer Coe - Why the 1980 Mr. Olympia was not on TV
