Tag Archives: olympics journalism

Olympic figures: BBC reports 12m video views via mobile

The BBC has revealed the figures showing the number of people consuming Olympics news across four platforms: desktop, tablet, mobile and television.

The BBC Internet blog reports that the broadcaster saw 9.2 million browsers to its mobile site and iPhone and Android Olympics app over the course of the Games.

The post also reveals the BBC clocked up more than 2.3 million browsers using tablets.

Writing on the blog, Cait O’Riorda, head of product, BBC Sport and London 2012, said:

Consumption of video content on mobile has been perhaps the key takeaway from the two weeks: we saw 12 million requests for video on mobile across the whole of the Games.

Overall the broadcaster had “106 million requests for BBC Olympic video content across all online platforms”.

The blog post has several interesting graphics, including one to demonstrate how people used each of the four platforms at different times of the day.

The key findings are:

  • PC usage maxes out during the week at lunchtime and during mid-afternoon peak Team GB moments
  • Mobile takes over around 6pm as people leave the office but still want to keep up to date with the latest action
  • Tablet usage reaches a peak at around 9pm: people using them as a second screen experience as they watch the Games on their TVs, and also as they continue to watch in bed

The blog also reports that the video “chapter-marking feature, enabling audiences to go back to key event moments instantly, received an average 1.5 million clicks per day. The chapter marker for Bolt’s 100m final win was clicked on more than 13,000 times”.

The most-watched livestream of the Games was the tennis singles finals. There were 820,000 requests for live video of the matches that saw Serena Williams and Andy Murray take gold.

O’Riorda states in the post:

The peak audiences for Team GB’s medal moments were bigger than anything we’ve ever seen. Over a 24 hour period on the busiest Olympic days, Olympic traffic to bbc.co.uk exceeded that for the entire BBC coverage of FIFA World Cup 2010 games. On the busiest day, the BBC delivered 2.8 petabytes, with the peak traffic moment occurring when Bradley Wiggins won gold and we shifted 700 Gb/s.

#Activateldn: Four innovations and ideas in ‘multilayered storytelling’

One of the sessions at today’s Guardian Activate Summit looked at how data and social media are influencing storytelling.

Here are four innovations, shared by Phil Fearnley, general manager, Future Media News & Knowledge, BBC; Stew Langille, CEO of Visually; Neal Mann, social media editor at the Wall Street Journal; and Simon Rogers, editor of the Guardian’s Datablog and Datastore.

1. The BBC gets ready for Olympic storytelling

The BBC site for the London Olympics gives every athlete, venue and sport its own page and apart from the homepage all are updated automatically with with the latest video and story content on that particular topic.

The Olympics site also focuses on personalisation, giving the audience the ability to favourite an athlete or sport and follow.

Fearnley said the development of the site started two years ago.

We had to satisfy the ‘main eventers’ and the ‘sports fanatics’. And we wanted to give the idea that you were never missing a moment.

The other innovation shared by Phil Fearnley was the BBC’s “live event video player”.

Viewers can use the interactive video player to jump back to a particular point in an event, such as a triple jump win, and then switch back to a live report.

With “up to 24 live events at once”, the player gives an experience that, according to Fearnley audiences say “is better than TV”.

We are transforming the way we tell video stories to our audiences.

2. Visually is allowing journalists to create their own data visualisations.

Visually launched last year “to democratise the way people use and consume data”. Today, the site has more than 11,000 infographics, 4,000 designers, and around 2 million visitors per month. In March, it launched Visually Create, a collection of self-service tools that allow anyone to create beautiful infographics.

Stew Langille, CEO of Visually told the conference that the team is now developing further tools which will allow journalists or anyone interested in creating a visualisation to do so.

3. Ideas in ‘multilayered storytelling’

Neal Mann, social media editor at the Wall Street Journal (@fieldproducer on Twitter) talked of the potential of “multilayered storytelling”.

Before taking up his new role at the WSJ, Mann went to Burkina Faso.

He worked with Storyful, which built a map which added his social media updates, photos (Mann is also a photographer) which was auto updated and which he shared with his large social media following.

“It allowed people to engage,” Mann said, explaining that updates from a less reported area were “continuously dropping onto people’s phones”.

The map got five times as many hits as a Guardian’s long-form piece of journalism from Mozambique, he said.

Other ways journalists are sharing “background” to text stories are by taking 360 degree images from a location.

His thought is that if you marry the two storytelling techniques, a social media map and long-form journalism, it would be even more powerful.

If you can combine the two it’s a great way news organisations can get people to engage in long-form journalism. The next level for me is that multilayered storytelling.

4. Open journalism, open data

Simon Rogers, editor of the Guardian Datastore and Datablog, shared examples of the Guardian’s data journalism.

He spoke of the conversations that went on before the launch of the Datastore where there was a view that people would not be interested in the raw data. Three years on and it has one million viewers a month

BBC’s sports editor on social media and the Olympics: ‘There’s an illusion around Twitter’

Image copyright Populou

Speaking at the Polis International Journalism conference today, BBC sports editor David Bond discussed as part of a panel the expected impact of social media on this year’s Olympic games, with 26,000 accredited journalists all eager to cover the sporting event across media platforms.

I caught up with David after the panel discussion to find out more about how he feels social media will impact sports journalism this year, and the considerations he is taking to ensure information from the platform is used responsibly.

Twitter has just changed everything. It wasn’t around in Beijing, maybe just starting off, but it wasn’t at the level it’s at now in terms of the amount of people who use it, the personalities who use it.

Currently David says he largely uses Twitter as a news source, and highlights the risks journalists will need to consider when using information from social media platforms, during the Olympics and more generally.

I think it comes with a lot of risks and dangers, you have to approach it like any piece of information.

On Twitter because it’s there and people see it, it’s got that broadcast quality and you assume, in most cases wrongly, it has reliability.

We’re still trying to get our heads around it.

He added that when it comes to using the platform to see the interactions of athletes competing in the games there are further considerations to be made by sports journalists.

A lot of it is done to plug sponsors and we have to be careful of are they really the people they say they are … that’s less of an issue now.

But it is going to be in many cases the way we find out about stories involving athletes as that’s the way they’re communicating now. Just look at football.

But he does have some concerns:

The worry for me is that increasingly we’re getting restricted on what we can ask people, direct contact with people is becoming more and more limited.

That’s quite alarming for me, the more barriers there are between two people having a conversation, having unfettered access, that just restricts the freedom of the media.

There’s an illusion around Twitter, I think, that it is all free information and it’s all moving incredibly fast, which it is – but I think there’s a risk of distortion around the quality of the information and there’s a lot of opportunity for people to put barriers in the way.

Government launches ‘virtual media centre’ for 2012 London Olympics

The government has launched the first few web-pages which will in time form its online media centre for the 2012 Games, giving the press a “single point of access for all government-related news stories”.

Content offered on the pages will include background information, logistics information and an image library. In a press release, culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, who has responsibility for the Games, said:

With London 2012 set to be the biggest media event in history, the UK Government is doing all it can to ensure the world’s media have everything they need.

Delivering an outstanding Olympic Games is not just about building world class facilities and infrastructure; it’s also about making sure the media can bring the sporting, cultural and human interest stories to homes across the world as quickly as possible.

These pages, plus the Government Olympic Communication Media Centre next year, will play crucial parts in making this Games the easiest to access for the media and their audiences. Between now and the start of the Games we will continue to work with media partners to ensure we’re doing all we can to meet their needs.”

The pages went live yesterday (24 October) and journalists can now sign-up and subscribe to the news alerts at www.culture.gov.uk/2012newsroom.

Media accreditation process open for Paralympic Games

The Newspaper Society issued a reminder this morning that media accreditation has now opened for the Paralympic Games. The first stage of the process, called Press by Number, opened earlier this month and media organisations have until 28 November to complete a document to indicate how many people they would to request accreditation for.

There are more details and documentation at the British Paralympic Association website. Successful media organisations will be contacted early next year to progress their applications to the second stage.

The NS adds that it is currently working with regional and local newspapers and the British Olympic Association (BOA) to put in place a regional press pool for the Olympic Games, which runs a separate accreditation process.

The Olympic Games process has come in for some criticism in recent weeks after it emerged many local London papers have not yet been approved despite certain aspects of the games taking place on their patch.

The NS reports that the minister for sport and the Olympics Hugh Robertson said he would write to the BOA about the matter after being questioned by MPs, but said it was “massively oversubscribed”.

He added: “There will be a level of public interest that I do not think we have remotely started to get our minds around. Spots will be tight, but I will absolutely do all that I can.

“There is a possible second channel for non-accredited media, and considerable provision is being made for those who cannot get formally accredited. The mayor of London has done an enormous amount to help that take place.”

Under the pooling system titles would be able to share material on the Games.

Reuters: Athletes can tweet at 2012 as long as not in manner of journalists

According to Reuters, athletes due to perform at the 2012 Olympics in London, have been told they can blog and tweet about their experiences of competing in the games, as long as it is “not done for commercial purposes”.

The decision comes from the International Olympic Committee, Reuters reports, which was said to actively encourage and supports athletes “to take part in ‘social media’ and to post, blog and tweet their experiences”.

Bloggers and tweeters must, however, restrict themselves to “first-person, diary-type formats”, must not report on events in the manner of journalists and must ensure their posts do not contain “vulgar or obscene words or images”.

According to the report, broadcasting of video and audio taken inside the venues remains banned but athletes may post videos taken outside the venues.

The IOC gets much of its revenue from the sale of television and online media rights and is therefore highly protective of their intellectual property in that regard.

Related content:

Figures suggest falling cost of media centre for Olympics

Times named sports newspaper of the year

University professor aims to create citizen social media network to cover Olympics

Calls for local media to apply for Olympics accreditation

Local news organisations are reminded they can now apply for accreditation to cover the 2012 Olympics in London in a release from the Newspaper Society.

Companies wishing to send journalists and photographers to the games must apply to the British Olympic Association (BOA) by the final deadline of 15 October.

The Society says it has held talks with both the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) and BOA to remind them how “uniquely placed” local media are to cover the event.

The NS has re-iterated that it is vital that the organisers of the Games should take full account of the particular role and needs of the local and regional press both in terms of those applying for full accreditation and in respect of non-accredited journalists, including as regards access to local venues and facilities to follow and report on particular athletes’ progress. The NS has also raised the issue of balancing broadcast rights against the needs of legitimate reportage on newspapers’ own websites, including blogs.

Applications for accreditation must be made using the downloadable form on the BOA website. According to the NS, accreditation for non rights-holding broadcasters is managed by the International Olympic Committee with application forms available in March next year.