In its annual report and accounts for the year to March 31, 2013, the broadcaster also discloses that additional "investment" in its coverage of London 2012 – the biggest outside broadcast it has ever attempted – was largely responsible for a 3.4 per cent year-on-year increase in "total content spend" to £2.53 billion ($3.85 billion/€2.93 billion).

For this investment, the BBC got programming and other content that it said reached 90 per cent of the United Kingdom population – a remarkable figure and "the highest audience for any event since measurement began".

While 52 million used their televisions to tune into the Games and 7.8 million listened to coverage on Radio 5 Live and Olympics Extra, less traditional platforms were also widely utilised, with the BBC claiming 32 million unique browsers, of whom 8.6 million watched on mobile browsers and 2.3 million on tablets.


The red button service, which usually reaches around 17 million people each week, was also widely used.

"The red button was a success story of the BBC's coverage of London 2012, as each of the 24 streams of Olympic content was watched by over 100,000 people, allowing us to reach an audience of 24 million," said Ralph Rivera, the BBC's director of future media.

Not surprisingly, the year brought a massive increase in the amount of sport broadcast by the corporation.

The flagship BBC One channel showed 858 hours in 2012-2013, up from 580 hours a year earlier, while radio broadcast 5,550 hours, up from 4,230 hours.

In a statistic likely to be especially well appreciated in Lausanne, where the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is extremely mindful of the need to keep young people interested in the Games, the amount of sports output broadcast by BBC Three, targeted at 16-30-somethings, increased nearly 10-fold, from 30 hours to 290 hours, in 2012-13.

Figures for 2013-14 should make very interesting reading.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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