BBC to use 15 live streams to broadcast Commonwealth Games events online
BBC Scotland director Ken MacQuarrie has pledged to live stream events at the upcoming Commonwealth Games to audiences throughout the UK and wider Commonwealth during a speech last night to the Royal Television Society.
MacQuarrie said: “In many ways, the Games came of age in a digital world, defined to large extent by the BBC’s approach to coverage. We will adopt a similar approach to the Commonwealth Games, during which 15 separate streams will be beamed from 17 locations around Scotland.
“In this endeavour, we will work closely with colleagues in Salford and London and with BBC teams and other broadcasters across the Commonwealth to ensure that the programming of, and around, the Games will be second to none.”
Elsewhere MacQuarrie promised to tackle the ‘digital divide’ which is particularly acute in Glasgow; where research suggests that 40 per cent of householders are still not online. He said: “For those of us for whom universality of access is an important principle, who aspire to helping audiences to derive the greatest benefit from engagement with emerging media, these are worrying statistics.
“Connectedness, inevitably, is about people, much more than it is about technology and clearly there is a sizeable minority, and no more so than in this city, who have yet to accept the economic and social benefits that digital interconnectedness can bring.”
2014 promises to be a busy 12 months for the broadcaster which in addition to covering the sporting spectacular must also commemorate the outbreak of World War 1 and the outcome of the independence referendum in Scotland.
During the 2012 London Olympics, the BBC used 24 Live Streams. Mark Coyle, who headed up the BBC's online team during the Olympics to The Drum about the Games coverage last October.