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You outline the case for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to portray the 'Games' in a good light and one would hope, which didn't really didn't come out in your blog, the parallel need to showcase the 'UK' in a positive way too. The games will, after all, be a once in a lifetime experience not just for Britons but also for other countries to see what this island nation is all about.

The Beijing Games were amazing, however, the TV coverage ran hot and cold and certain events such as Sailing and Rowing, where the camera angles did not allow a full understanding of the unfolding events, were frustrating. The results service both during and immediately after events was also poor but I did think the Beijing results website was excellent. Hopefully, we will see ´óÏó´«Ã½ innovation, flair and ingenuity come to the fore!

Very interesting speech Roger. A question for you - can you explain the logistics between the ´óÏó´«Ã½, LOCOG and any London Olympic Broadcasting ('LOB') Group similar to the AOB & BOB organisations at the last two Summer Games.

I recollect from a previous blog posting that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ was commissioned by BOB to provide the coverage from the rowing this year (correct me if I'm wrong): will the ´óÏó´«Ã½ (as part of LOB or as host broadcaster) commission other organisations to do similar?

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"Even those figures are dwarfed by China, where the opening ceremony alone in August was watched by 842 million - 63% of the entire population. Lots of events claim, erroneously, to be watched by billions. This one really is."

What makes you so certain that these figures are any more accurate than those usually used to make erroneous claims about sporting events?

The piece you link to is a news digest that alludes to a blog posting that gives no information about the methodology used.

Could it not be that those involved in televising the olympics are as prone to overstatement as those involved in other events?

I mentioned this in one of Roger's blogs previously, but the International Olimpics Committee in 2004 established a subsidiary based in Madrid which will act as "host broadcaster" for all Olympics from Vancouver 2010 on. This is different to the arrangements since 1992 where the local organising committee and the IOC have set up a joint body to be host broadcaster. (Up to 1998 the local broadcaster would usually take the lead.) However as was obvious the Chinese state broadcaster was massively involved in Beijing, as the ´óÏó´«Ã½ obviously will be in 2012. The website is here: It would seem that the host broadcaster will not as such be pointing cameras at anything, but instead arranging client broadcasters,in many cases the ´óÏó´«Ã½, to do the job for it. I stand to be corrected on this however. Roger has been asked to spearhead all of this and abandon, as it were, the rest of ´óÏó´«Ã½ sport for the duration. No doubt he can clarify.

An excellent and thorough blog post, Roger.

I can only hope that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ builds on the excellent coverage it provided in Bejing, but suspect that it's damned if it does and damned if it doesn't.

Not enough coverage and it will be accused of ignoring potentially the most important sporting occasion to be held in the UK for decades; too much and it will be accused of wasting licence fee payers' cash on minority sports which nobody cares about.

It's hard to predict where technology will be even in four years' time, but it's entirely possible that every single event will be available to view live via the red button or online - a mouthwatering prospect indeed!

My personal wish-list would be:

- At least one HD channel showing the main action and a highlights package overnight.

- 6 interactive DSAT streams coving the best live action and giving a thouroughly comprehensive highlights package and replays overnight.

- All events available to view live via the website.

- All events available on iPlayer as soon as possible after the event

- Five Live Sports Extra to be dedicated to the Olympics

- ´óÏó´«Ã½ Parliament to be utilised for extra coverage if at all possible

- At least one "main" ´óÏó´«Ã½ channel to be declared an Olympic-free zone to appease the whingers!


Completely off-topic, Roger, will you soon be revealing more details about the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s planned F1 coverage? I know the commentary team's been announced but when do you expect an official confirmation about HD and interactive coverage?

A well thoughout post by the soon to be ex ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport Director.
Roger, your impact on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport has been major with major things like the axing of Grandstand and the coverage of the 2008 Olympics.
As you take up your 2012 role...will you still be having a part within the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport department alongside the new Director?
Or will the new role be more focused on the London 2012 coverage and how the ´óÏó´«Ã½ plan to cover the 4 years leading to it?
Whatever happens, Roger, you have turned ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport on its head and what you have done has changed the way the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport is looked like now.

great blog, always interesting to see things from the inside out.

But even as a keen sports watcher I do have real doubts when people try to link Olympic sports investment to long term local and national improvements. Wouldn't some kind of ´óÏó´«Ã½ program chronicalling what happened after Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney and Athens be useful in terms of what those individual cities did and how successful they were? Is there a real tangible legacy, or is it just a myth created by politicans and media?

I know there will be long term tourist increases but with the huge urban social problems the UK (and other Countries) is suffering from we can't justify billions of pounds on what is basically a glorified urban renewal project with some nice stadia thrown in for good measure.

I'd also be interested to see just how many professional sports venues we'll have in Greater London once everything is built, according to its 90 pre-2012, that seems like an insanely high number to me for a population of just 7.4 million, when New York State has 150 venues and 20 million people.

Apologies for going off at a tangent, but my mind wandered a bit

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I apologise for the mistake in my blog #5-the date for the last time the local broadcaster took the lead was 1988 in Seoul, not 1998 obviously. Elsewhere Olympic enthusiasts will note the IOC has finally brought its long term relataionship with the EBU to an end. The implications for Sochi 2014 on will take some time to unravel. I have no doubt the ´óÏó´«Ã½ will already be considering its options-it's official stance is that it is looking forward to negotiating with the IOC directly. I don't expect Roger to comment at all-but at a time when I (like many others no doubt)have cancelled my Sky Sports subscription I think that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ deserve more credit for the efforts they have made to maintain its sport portfolio. The free to air model for commercial broadcasters in any sport except football is just about a busted flush.

As for global sport audiences, a research project a few years ago showed IIRC that at that time only the FIFA World Cup Final and the Superbowl were likely to approach 100 million-anything else was lucky to get 30 million-globally. Many countries only now sell to tiny subscription audiences-this has of course dramatically affected what used to be big audience pullers like boxing. You have to remember for that most Sky and Setanta broadcasts in the UK the audiences are so small they are barely worth estimating. For subscription broadcasters, the issue is not the size of the audience, but the number of subscribers. For FTA broadcasters the conundrum is different-the audiences are bigger but does their size justify the huge outlay rights holders now expect. Only for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is the answer still likely to remain a yes I would have thought. But the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s resources are finite.

I have to agree with Cryotek #9- I live almost 400 miles away from London and fail to see the benefit to myself and my neighbours of the cost of urban re-generation in London.

I wish the ´óÏó´«Ã½ best wishes for it's coverage and hope that it retains a 'cost effective' view towards coverage rather than a 'blank cheque it's the olympics' view especially if they are able to show the UK (not just London) to the rest of the World to encourage tourism.

My personal view is that the UK cannot afford the games, the benefit to the UK (outside London) will be minimum and the lasting legacy of the Olympics being a cost/debt and a few unused stadia - I look forward to being proved wrong.

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Mr Mosey,

I'd agree about the claims made about domestic football matches, but I'd draw your attention to this article from the Independent:



which has a very goosd analysis of FIFA's 1 billion viewer claim for the World Cup, which on the face of it would seem as logical as the IOCs, but on closer analysis overstates things by atleast 100%.

I'm a PE teacher and looked at the "education programme" and some of the associated links.
I feel so depressed - lots of idealistic enthusiastic vocabulary and various recent governmental reports on objectives which I was expected to attain 30 years ago on teaching practice.

I now live in Barcelona and whilst the 1992 Olympics were fundamental in bringing about major changes and excellent developments in the infrastructure of Barcelona, they did very little for improving PE and sports at school or for ordinary Joe Bloggs.

I truly hope that some of the poorest parts of London benefit and I admire your optimism but I doubt that the Olympics has something for everyone.

Roger sorry to go off topic, but there has been a few bits and pieces in the press recently that in 2009 ´óÏó´«Ã½ Television's horse racing coverage will be truncated to just 12 days coverage, for the big events.

Will there be any ´óÏó´«Ã½ responce on this, whether it is true and if so the reasons for this truncation?

Good luck with you new role for 2012, I am still dissapointed at the axing of Grandstand but apart from that you have done a good job with ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport and leave it in good shape.

P.S. This blog is still a lot quieter than this time last year, you would get blogs previewing most of the weekend's big events i.e. most rugby weekends, golf, football etc, it is still very quiet in comparison.

Roger going back to the earlier points regarding the OBSL and your role as Director of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s 2012 related operations, what role will ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport be playing with reference to OBSL. I appreciate that you may have your hand tied for one reason or the other (do say so though!), but can you explain how that relationship will work? Will OBSL be heavily be put together by staff from OBSV or BOB or alternatively will it have a ´óÏó´«Ã½ team at the core?

Separately - and off topic - are there any plans to bring the Boat Race back now that ITV have dropped it after the '09 race?

We had a choice London or nothing. If the games weren't in London we would never have had the support of the government.

While I'm sure many non-Londoners feel positive about the games being in London I doubt that too many people in the West Mid-lands or Lancashire feel too good about it as Manchester and Birmingham were never really given a fair chance. As for London’s geographic location, it is in the far south east corner of a long narrow island and therefore fairly difficult to get to if you live in the north.

So Northern Ireland is in favour of the London games, I wonder how many in favour are republican Catholics.

London is a very expensive place to build.

Why are so many stats about viewer numbers from the USA? London is a European Capital.

In the End I hope it goes well. But it will always be a London games and not a general UK games. There’s nothing Welsh, Scot or northern about it's current presentation.

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Beijing raised the proverbial bar so high it is difficult to imagine how us Brits - as known as we are for being less than spectacular and outgoing in our daily endeavours - to attain such heights in 2012.

Some heavy weights, to use another sporting analogy, lay on the shoulders of the committees whose task awaits!

Much more on this thread is found in

"The Games are supported by every mainstream political party in the UK and by a clear majority of the public..."

I don't think it is.

The Olympics are going to be a huge drain on vital resources for Britain at the worst possible time. I have never supported the Olympics and the majority of people only catch snip its of it when its on else where. We're not set up to host an Olympics, nor do the people have enough interest or desire to pay for such an event.

I would whole heartedly like to see some honest tough journalism from the ´óÏó´«Ã½ that expresses these views.

I understand we are now commited to hosting the 2012 games and there is little or no point nay saying and making things worse. But the British public is going to become more and more concerned the closer we get to 2012, and the ´óÏó´«Ã½ should be there to relay those concerns.