Third-party content key to BBC Sport plans for Olympics

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BBC Sport will make use of more third-party content in its online coverage of the London Olympics in 2012, its head of interactive said today.

The corporation will work with sporting government bodies, the Media Trust and independent television production companies to provide this coverage, Ben Gallop told a Westminster e-forum event .

Increased use of user-generated content, which featured during BBC Sport's Beijing Olympics coverage in the form of blog comments and uploads to an interactive map , is a key aim for 2012.

"We want to show the very best of BBC content and the audience's, but what we need to take very seriously are the rights issues," he said.

"A key part of our website will be thinking of the Olympics as a national event and we really want to showcase that."

New technology must be 'exploited' in time for 2012 to ensure the BBC is 'showing every piece of Olympic action as it happens'.

"We hope that 2012 can do for digital what the coronation did for television ," he said.

The introduction of six video players and embedded video content to the BBC Sport website for this year's games resulted in 'staggering' traffic to the site, which averaged 8.5 million unique users a week during August, and showed the 'huge demand for this new media experience'.

During August's games 36 million video streams were served by the site, compared to 2.4 million in the previous competition in Athens.

The number of video streams served - during the opening ceremony in Beijing alone - surpassed the figure for Athens and this time more players on different platforms are being considered for the London Olympics.

In preparation for 2012, the BBC must plan for the existence of new platforms and audience demands, Gallop added.

Speaking to Journalism.co.uk, Gallop said this would involve testing new technologies for sports coverage on other events in the build-up to the 2012 games.

The way in which BBC Sport is increasing online coverage of Formula One and covering the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa will contribute to plans for the London Games online, he said.

The corporation's Research and Development department will be heavily involved in this process, he added.