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BBC's man facing an Olympic challenge
ROGER Mosey went to the Beijing Olympics and was blown away by the experience, but clearly worries about being seen as too much of a softie in the way he talks about it.
"Without sounding too soppy in a way you wouldn't believe of anyone from Yorkshire, I found Beijing really moving. Watching Chinese parents taking their child to be photographed in front of the Bird's Nest and taking part in such a huge national and international event brought home to me how incredibly special it is to have the Games in your country.
"The London Olympics will be the only time in my lifetime that I'll witness this same emotional national moment. It will be very different to Beijing, though, and we want it to tell us and the world something new about the UK, our culture and our history."
Having done lots of meaty jobs at the BBC in a career that started at Pennine Radio and has embraced award-winning spells editing Radio 4's PM and Today programmes, being controller of Radio 5 Live, head of BBC TV News and director of Sport, as ever with BBC executives, he says the current job is his favourite.
As the then director of BBC Sport, he was the obvious choice to plan how the BBC would give viewers and listeners sparkling coverage of 20-plus sports, myriad highlights programmes and Olympics-related features, and the cultural Olympiad that starts well before the sports and runs in parallel to them.
But then, what's not to love? Mosey is clearly a huge sports fan, and spending the next three years working out the logistics of how the BBC will play its part in delivering the Olympics to the world is not only an honour but a professional challenge, he says.
It might surprise some to know that, even when the Olympics take place on our soil, the BBC is not the "host broadcaster," masterminding the minutiae of coverage of all sports and how they are relayed to the world.
"It goes back to the days when one overly patriotic host country (the US) was running all the coverage and it appeared that only that country had won gold medals.
"What happens now is that the International Olympic Committee puts together a consortium of world broadcasters, with each taking responsibility for a couple of events."
In Sydney, the BBC looked after track events, and in Beijing it fed coverage of all the rowing events to the waiting billions.
"For major events we will have our own presenting team and the usual studio-based programmes. But we are not responsible for providing all the pictures that go around the world."
In the meantime, there's an enormous job to be done in the run-up to 2012, with the BBC working alongside the planners of the enormous Olympic Village as it rises out of the ground in east London, to ensure that the infrastructure has everything broadcasters will need.
Then there is the Cultural Olympiad, a wealth of events showcasing the arts which will run before and during the Games, and offer a different "must-see" offering at about 8pm each evening on BBC.
These will certainly include concerts by the biggest names in music, and the cultural events will build up from long before the famous torch reaches the Olympic Stadium.
Mosey has been in Yorkshire talking to BBC staff about how they will get involved in the Olympics. The message the top of the BBC are keen to spread is that these Olympics will reach far beyond London.
"The torch will probably travel around the UK for about two months beforehand, and we intend that it will pass by within an hour of 95 per cent of the country. Each region will hold its own events around the torch's arrival, which gives opportunities to broadcasters in the regions.
"We also want the whole of the BBC to be involved, and at times we'll be using people from right across the organisation."
The BBC was criticised over the 400-plus personnel sent to Beijing, which eclipsed the size of Team GB itself. Mosey, on behalf of the Beeb, is unrepentant. "I can't see any correlation between the size of the British team and the contingent you need to cover the event.
"The fact is that Beijing was in a very difficult time zone for us, where you were having to use staff around the clock. Live events in Beijing were seen at breakfast time in the UK sometimes, and we wanted to do highlights programmes which had to go out at 2am or 3am Beijing time."
When it comes to regular coverage of sport, Roger Mosey bats away any criticism of the loss of live cricket.
"The Ashes contract was part of when Sky outbid Channel 4... Cricket has made the decision that they got a lot of money out of satellite exclusivity. No-one begrudges the money going into the sport, but it's way beyond what a terrestrial broadcaster could afford.
"But we (the BBC) have the Olympics, Wimbledon, the Six Nations, the World Cup in 2010 and 2014, we just renewed Match of the Day's contract, and we've got Formula 1. We have a strong free-to-air portfolio."
The BBC pays 57m for Match of the Day highlights alone.
Which brings us to the licence fee. Mosey believes that the 142.50 we pay is incredible value for money, even in a recession when families might have to cut back on all sorts of extras but can't legally trim the licence fee.
"If you look at what the BBC provides in terms of original drama, comedy, news and regional news... people who say they don't get much value from the licence fee actually do.
"Even if they don't watch a huge amount of TV, they may well listen to Radio 1 or 2 or Radio Leeds or use our online site, which contains a huge amount of sports coverage as well as news and features."
The recent Digital Britain report recommended that the BBC gives 130m of its annual 3.4bn licence fee to commercial competitors whose advertising revenues have been ravaged.
But, while sympathising with the slump-hit ITV and Channel 4, Mosey feels the Beeb is already doing its bit to help its rivals.
"We'll work with ITV to share content and facilities and space with them... Sharing the licence fee more widely could bring the problem of ending up with a quango or local bureaucracy, a committee making local decisions."
He believes the economy's recovery from recession will naturally bring a turnaround in ITV advertising revenues.
Some of the salaries and expenses paid to top BBC executives have come in for criticism – although Mosey's were not among them. The public has lost patience with the sums paid to BBC "talent".
"You have to recognise that in recent years it was a very competitive market and people expect to see top talent on the BBC. We're living through slightly different times now and there's a bit less competition, so salaries won't be the same.
"Accountability is a great thing, and so is dialogue. I like the fact that people get hold of my email address and berate me over what might or might not be our plans for fencing in 2012. Rugby League fans are particularly vociferous, as I found out once when (as director of BBC Sport) I said that I didn't think there was much call for Rugby League coverage in East Anglia..."
Mosey, who attended Bradford Grammar School before Oxford University, returns to Bradford regularly and is a director of the National Media Museum and a Bradford City fan.
"What I see when I come back is the big hole in the road. I really hope that the UNESCO announcement of Bradford as the world's first City of Film is the start of a turnaround.
" What really strikes you is the difference between Leeds and Bradford. Leeds on a Saturday night is this amazing, vibrant
city, with bars and restaurants buzzing in the middle of a recession. Bradford just doesn't have that same feeling of success.
"I love Bradford and spent all of my childhood there (at one point his family ran a couple of Post Offices on Otley Road). I really want the city to turn around."
sheena.hastings@ypn.co.uk
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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