The BBC will send 455 staff to cover this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro – 40% down on the number it employed for London 2012.
The BBC acknowledged that its staff numbers often attracted criticism and said its total deployment was one-fifth of the number being sent by US broadcaster NBC.
The number of accredited staff is down on the 765 who covered the 2012 Games, and slightly fewer than the 493 who flew to China for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Alongside its coverage on TV and radio and an expanded digital offering through its interactive red button service, each individual sport will be streamed online.
But there will be no repeat of the experiment four years ago when the BBC responded to a first home Olympics for more than 60 years with up to 24 channels of sport in cable and satellite homes.
The BBC’s director of sport, Barbara Slater, also pointed out that about 70% of the BBC’s personnel would be freelance, “part of the BBC’s commitment to supporting production talent across the UK media industry”.
“We know that staff numbers can often attract criticism, but to put these into context we are deploying about one-fifth the size of the team of the US broadcast rights holder,” said Slater.
“We are planning to deliver roughly the same volume of output as London 2012 but with 455 accredited staff being sent to Brazil – around 40% below the total number of accreditations for London 2012 and 35% below Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games in 2014.
“We have purposefully re-prioritised resources over the last four years to ensure we deliver the best possible coverage of Rio 2016.
“The presenters, commentators, reporters and pundits that lead our coverage require the support of a wide array of production and technical staff.
“The days are long, intensive and high-pressured, with the majority of staff working from the international broadcast centre alongside the rest of the world’s media.
“As with Euro 2016 [taking place in France, also this summer], we are working in partnership with other broadcasters to share presentation facilities and maximise the efficiency of our production operations.
“As technology develops we expect to locate more of our major event production (and staff) in the UK without undermining the quality of coverage. But some of the technology we need to use is not broadcast-ready yet.”
Last year the BBC lost control of the future destiny of Games coverage after Discovery won the pan-European rights from 2018 onwards, and 2022 in the UK, in a £920m deal.
But the Olympics will remain on the BBC until at least 2024 after the corporation agreed a deal with the US broadcasting giant Discovery to sub-license the rights.
