If you were like me, you were glued to the TV last August, watching the Summer Olympics from Paris, especially the track and field events where American Noah Lyles became the “Fastest Man on Earth” by winning the 100 meter dash.

The thrill of victory by one one thousandth of a second – 1/1,000 — a whisker:  faster than the blink of an eye; less time than it takes to exhale. But despite the slimmest of margins, at home on TV, you were able to see there was no doubt about the outcome, in large part because of the work done by Jim Carr who produced the the highlights of that broadcast for NBC.

It was no small undertaking. ” We had 110 cameras available to us in Paris from NBC and the world  camera feed at track and field, about 25 of those covering the finish line ” noted Carr about the scope of production.

The Olympics Games is the all star game of television broadcasting.  The combination of live and packaged telecasts over two weeks doesn’t get any bigger than this. The producers are the quarterbacks of the operation, determining how events will be featured. It means determining the content of the broadcast, prepping the announcers, choosing the graphics, plotting coverage and helping directors set up the visuals. Some of it is live and , in Jim’s case, it can be after the competition pulling together the highlight shows for prime time in the US. .

As you might expect with an event this big,  the 60 year old Carr is no rookie when it comes to who is at the controls for the marquee broadcast on the World sports calendar. This is the 17the Olympics for the Saratoga NY based television veteran who is already thinking about number 18 and what he’ll be doing at the Winter Games in Italy in 2026.

Although he isn’t certain what his assignment will be, he already knows what the scope can be.

‘For an outdoor event like the downhill event, there may be 100 cameras or more engaged for the race: large studio cameras on platforms, point of view cameras that shift along the run, sophisticated hand held cameras, and helicopters and  drones in the air above the course. All of this will be plotted out long in advance, in some instances as soon as this winter more than a year before the event.”

At the winter games In 2022,  Jim was all set as a post production producer of figure skating from Bejiing when the network asked him to double up and take on the snowboard competition too. In a year when much of the US coverage was staffed remotely from studios in Connecticut, Carr was on scene at two locations in China. Shifting assignments on short notice is not unusual, it seems. Just before leaving for Europe for track and field this summer,  he was called to Connecticut to help with the remote network coverage of the spectacular opening ceremonies on the Seine River in Paris. .

Being in the right place at the right time has been a hallmark of Carr’s career from the start. The upstate New York native watched the 1980 Winter Olympics from Lake Placid as a teenager and, a few years later after graduating with a degree in communications from the nearby state college at Plattsburg, was hired by the local television station. He and an on- air colleague were sent to provide local coverage of the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary. There he worked in the same space as the network and international television crews. He made contacts. It was the era of expanding television opportunities with cable stations and 24 hour sports broadcasting. He hasn’t looked back since.

After several years with AMPS, a local  production service that packaged various sports competitions in the Lake Placid area, he started his own company in1993 and moved to his hometown. In 2002 he teamed up with former US luge athlete and organizer Bob Hughes to form Carr Hughes Productions.

Is he good at what he does? Seven broadcast Emmy Awards suggest the experts believe he is.

Today, in addition to his work with the Olympics, he produces a variety of sports broadcasts, from equestrian and horse racing to international  track and field , much of it in partnership with NBC and ESPN, Carr Hughes bought a mobile broadcast unit in 2017 and now crisscross the US and Canada for sports of all sorts: They can do an event like Big Ten football, or produce an entire competition like the World University Winter Games last January. That was  an eight venue event throughout the Adirondacks that required a staff of 277. Five months earlier, Carr Hughes was across the country in Oregon for the international Track and Field champions. (Yes, Jim did chat with Snoop Dog.)

In the early years, much of the work was done on site then shipped back and produced at his studio in Saratoga near his home. Today, with the advancement of broadcast technology, a lot of the work can be done remotely.

‘A lot of the editing that once required a studio can now be done on a laptop. We can shoot on site and transmit a ready to air product directly to the network from the site. Our work no longer demands a big city presence. We can be located anywhere.”

Where does he want to be in the winter of 2026?

“I hope I will be in Italy. The Olympics are so much fun in person.”