26 Jan 2010
Ahead of the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver this month, the BBC’s head of major events Dave Gordon speaks exclusively to Sportindustry.biz about the potential omission of the Games from the Listed Events ruling, the challenges of scheduling such a large event and living up to the broadcaster’s public service remit.
How big is the Winter Olympics in terms of audience pull and has it increased or decreased over the last 20 years?
I think that there are two parts to this question. The conventional TV audience is down from but that’s mainly due to the increasing number of multimedia platforms. If you look purely at numbers, then you just have to go back to when Torvill and Dean did their final dance in ’94 and that attracted 23.95m viewers, but it has never got back to those heights.
I think the interest has changed, traditionally the Winter Olympics was dominated by TV because of the pictures, but media has taken great strides and we now have multimedia platforms available and you can stream a lot of the events online or follow the popular text service, while you also have the red button service as well.
There is an awful lot of choice to watch sports, and the Olympics are a blue ribbon event so people love to watch it. Getting a gold medal is a great achievement and people are more conscious about watching people win these medals in the same way as watching someone win a tennis Grand Slam event for example.
I never cease to be surprised with how engaged the audience are in watching people attempt to win medals. I just think back to 2004 in Salt Lake City when 6m people were watching our curling team win the gold medal at midnight. That was an extraordinary audience if you think about it, especially because curling isn’t a well-known sport, yet there was the whole country glued to it.
In your experience of Olympic Games are the Winter Olympics a justifiable emission from the proposed new Listed Events regulations?
I think it was something that we hadn’t anticipated; we were very surprised it wasn’t on the list because it is a great event.
That is really still in the post-consultation phase, but we would support to show the Winter Olympics because we feel that they really resonate with the audience.
The BBC has a great relationship with the International Olympic Committee so we would love to keep broadcasting the Winter Olympics.
How do you approach the challenges of living up to the public remit for events such as this?
We are working very hard to try and not just do what we did four years ago. We want to try and improve our coverage with innovative ideas and make changes to refresh the whole operation. We are looking at different ways to broadcast and reach more people.
The problem we face this year is the time-zone difference because the Games are in Canada. It’s not ideal in terms of audience figures because a lot of people will be asleep when the events are live. However, we will be showing daily highlights of the main events everyday that will aim to show every medal won.
I still think that we will get good audience figures for the live broadcasts though, especially for blue ribbon events like the downhill skiing.
We will also have BBC Radio 5 Live breakfast broadcasting live from Vancouver every day. People will also have access to the red button throughout the day to see the highlights and there will be a two hour catch up programme every evening giving the viewer a chance to see more comprehensive coverage of events.
I’m aware there’s a lot going on in the sporting agenda when the Games are on, such as the Six Nations and obviously the football. But I think there is something special about any Olympic Games and I have no doubt that the event will capture imaginations.
Can you give me a good example of when a Winter Olympic moment has caught the attention of the nation? Has it ever happened when it didn’t involve a British athlete?
Obviously Torvill and Dean in ‘94 and more recently the curling gold medal in Salt Lake City. The British love sport and the unexpected and love to support the underdog.
The excitement and danger in the men’s downhill skiing creates a buzz because these guys are risking everything for gold medals – it’s just a fantastic heart in mouth moment when they speed down the mountainside. It also gives breathtaking images and people love to watch it – especially now High Definition is available.
People always love the skaters like the legendary German Katrina Witt in ’84 and ’88.
The Olympics always throw up memorable moments such as in the snowboard cross when Lindsay Jacobellis was well ahead in first place, then fell over just short of the finish line, only to get silver.
Then there was the Australian figure skater Steven Bradbury in the short track speed skating. He was in last place, then everyone fell over and he went on to win the gold medal – that was a great moment, and an example of when a nation ends up with an unexpected hero. The Olympics always gives us these great sporting moments.
Are you looking to focus a lot of attention on a specific sport or person?
We will aim to do a combination of the two. We will be showing every medal live so all the events are very important to us.
The snowboarding has become popular with youngsters, and has been successful in reaching a wider audience. The downhill skiing is also very popular as is the speed skating, so we will be showing a lot of that.
Clearly we will focus on the big international stars and our biggest hopes to bring home a medal. But we will also look to try and bring new and upcoming stars into the frame.
We will follow the British competitors closely, but we know that some of them won’t have a chance so we will be completely honest about that.
With London 2012 on the horizon is there room for testing new multimedia platforms at the Winter Olympics?
Yes of course, but this is a great event in itself and I wouldn’t call it rehearsal for 2012. But it does give us a good chance to look at new technology and distribution techniques.
We are looking to put more effort in to the online side of things - with the very popular live text commentary and live video streaming. This goes for all the sports that we cover, not just for the Winter Olympics.
People love having access to live texts because they are so interactive. Everyone gets the chance to be involved by leaving comments, so this will be an area we will be focusing on.
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