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| Apollo 11 |
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The media coverage of Apollo 11 was the most complex, expensive, and widely watched event in television history up to that point. An estimated 650 million people—roughly one-fifth of the world's population in 1969—tuned in to watch Neil Armstrong take his historic first steps on the lunar surface.
A 1970 United States congressional hearing noted that "all countries which had the technical capability of telecasting Apollo 11 live did so"; it also noted that coverage was mostly positive. The Apollo 11 mission received the most news coverage of all the Apollo missions and the television coverage for following missions dropped over time.
Australia played a major role in broadcasting the Moon landing, with the highest quality footage of the moonwalk being received by Australian stations.
Honeysuckle Creek pictures were used for the first eight minutes of Neil Armstrong's moonwalk, as the Parkes station did not have a clear view of the Moon. After eight minutes the Moon was in view for the Parkes station, which took over for the rest of the moonwalk.
All three major American broadcast networks, CBS, NBC and ABC had live coverage of the Moon landing. In the United States, 94 percent of people watching television were tuned into the event. In 1969 most households had a television set at 94.8%. However of those homes which had one most were not color television sets. In Alaska, the landing of Apollo 11 was the first ever live satellite television broadcast in the state.
British television coverage of the Apollo 11 mission lasted from 16 to 24 July 1969 on all three UK television channels, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. Most of the footage covering the event from a British perspective has now been wiped or lost.
Footage of the launch was played on RTÉ. Live footage of the landing was played on RTÉ during the early hours of the morning with Kevin O'Kelley doing coverage of it by himself.
In Italy it was estimated 40 million people watched the Apollo 11 televised landing on the Moon according to a US government memo from the Director of the United States Information Service to US President Richard Nixon but in a 1970 US Congressional Report that contained a media report for July 21, 1969 it noted that 21 million saw the landing. Programs were broadcast on Telespazio and RAI about the Lunar landing with the RAI program featuring also a roundtable discussion between two anchors alongside guests like politicians, astronomers and physicists with their coverage of the landing.
By the time of the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969, the North and South Islands of New Zealand were each network-capable via microwave link, but the link over Cook Strait had not been completed, and there was no link between New Zealand and the outside world. Footage of the Moon landing was recorded on video tape at the Australian Broadcasting Commission's ABN-2 in Sydney, then rushed by an RNZAF English Electric Canberra to Wellington and WNTV1. To forward this to the South Island, the NZBC positioned one of its first outside broadcasting vans to beam the footage to a receiving dish across Cook Strait, from which it was forwarded through the recently commissioned South Island network.
When the Apollo 11 landing occurred some communist countries (Soviet Union, North Korea and the People's Republic of China) did not broadcast live television footage of it. Although the Soviet Union did not broadcast the news live, it did broadcast footage of the launch four hours later on "the main Soviet evening television news show" discussed the launch and played footage of it. Footage of the launch and the landing was broadcast in the Soviet Union.
Communist countries in Europe which covered the Moon landing on television live were: Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Several radio stations in Eastern Europe interrupted their programming to announce the liftoff (Radio Prague, Budapest and Warsaw).
Morocco, Libya and Tunisia played live news coverage of the event on television.
Indian electronic media of that era was largely confined to radio. It is reported that the broadcasts were not synchronous with the Apollo 11 flight. For example, the AIR Madras radio service, which was relaying from the Voice of America’s commentary on the Apollo 11 take-off on 16 July, cut off its relay “exactly at 7pm. Whereas the take-off took place only at 7.02pm." The radio service instead switched to Thirai Ganam—a film songs programme.
Both Colombian television channels (public, national Canal Nacional and private, local TV 9 Bogotá (Teletigre)) broadcast special programmes before, during and after the Moon landing, which was broadcast live during the night of 20 July 1969 (a holiday in Colombia since it was Independence Day):
Caracol Radio, Colombia's largest radio network, also aired a series of special programmes with Eucario Bermúdez, José de Recasens and Samuel Ospina.
The special programming aired from 15 to 24 July 1969. Since at the time Colombia lacked a ground station to receive satellite signals (it would not have one until 1970 in Chocontá), both channels had to resort to their fellow Venezuelan television stations. The television signal of the Moon landing would travel from Houston to Bogotá via Cape Canaveral-Caracas-Maracaibo-Jurisdicciones (near Ábrego, Norte de Santander). Teletigre's owner Consuelo Salgar de Montejo had asked Inravisión permission to install a portable satellite station for then upcoming Apollo 12's Moon landing, request denied in August 1969. Some television sets were installed in public venues in cities like Bogotá for Colombians to watch the historic event.
In Uruguay, coverage of the Apollo 11 mission was declared to be of “general interest” by the government, allowing it to be broadcast on all free-to-air television channels. Teledoce, an affiliate of the American network ABC, had previously secured the official broadcasting rights for Uruguay and aired key stages of the mission, including the launch on July 16, 1969.
Channel 10 and Monte Carlo Televisión produced a joint broadcast hosted by journalists Carlos Giacosa, Barret Puig, and Víctor Hugo Pedroso. Their live coverage included both the lead-up to the mission and its aftermath, extending into the early hours of the morning, and featured a telephone interview with aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun. Despite lacking official rights, the “general interest” designation enabled both networks to broadcast the full mission.
The mission was also extensively covered by the print media, which followed its development closely and conducted street interviews with residents of Montevideo. El Día journalist Leonardo Guzmán was the only Uruguayan reporter present at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center during the mission.
Live broadcasts of the moon landing were not available in South Vietnam at that time. For American troops, footage of it was played on the American Forces Vietnam Network which was taped on its radio station in Saigon and 8 television stations throughout Vietnam. The tapes were sent from the Philippines and sent to Saigon and to other stations beyond Saigon.
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