BBC Takes Olympics Online And Interactive For First Time
This year’s Olympic Games in Athens will be screened online for the first time, with the BBC claiming to offer the world’s first interactive coverage of the world’s biggest sporting event across broadband, interactive television and digital text services.
The BBC’s online and interactive coverage forms part of its new ‘on demand’ strategy for its internet operations, unveiled by Ashley Highfield, the Corporation’s director of new media and technology, earlier this year.
The extended coverage of the event, which launches later this week, will see BBC One and BBC Two screen 250 hours of Olympic programming, over 1,000 hours of extra coverage will also be available to digital viewers via interactive television feeds.
In addition to screening video feeds of the event, BBC Online will keep viewers updated with alerts direct to their desktop, and will employ the newly created BBC Sport video player, last seen during the Euro 2004 football tournament. The player offers viewers an adjustable window in which to watch the action from Athens, as well as the option to view at full screen with picture quality equivalent to VHS.
An on-screen news ticker is also available from BBCi, giving viewers updates on news and events as they unfold. BBCi users will also have access to a scheduling tool to help them plan their viewing and navigate the BBC’s coverage across the five video streams.
A news service will be offered to sports fans on the move, with the BBC able to send updates to viewers’ mobile phones while they are away from their television of PC. The Corporation will also provide a highlights service with pictures for mobiles powerful enough to receive them.
Commenting on the extended and enhanced Olympics coverage, Andrew Thompson, head of development for new media and sports news with BBC Sport, said: “This is the first ever interactive Summer Olympics. Broadband take-up is growing rapidly in the UK and I am delighted we are able to offer such a comprehensive service.”
However, those viewers without digital television or the internet are not being left behind, the Corporation plans to run comprehensive coverage of the events via its analogue text service, Ceefax. Digital viewers will be able to access the same service via digital text services through Freeview, cable and satellite.
Online coverage of sporting events has proved to be extremely popular in the past, with the BBC’s Euro 2004 services attracting a peak of more than 1.2 million unique users in the third week of the contest (see Euro 2004 Tournament Attracts Record Online Audiences).
BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk
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