A capital idea

Of all the acronyms at the last Games in London, we were there

One of the key roles for the EBU is to represent their members' interests to another set of initials - OBS. That stands for Olympic Broadcasting Services, who are the company created by the IOC to be the host broadcaster for the Olympics. OBS organise the video and audio coverage of all the individual sports - using the resources of partner broadcasters from around the world - and then they deal with the EBU on facilities and the logistics of what's offered to the rightsholders. OBS will also work side by side with the Games organisers - in this case the biggest set of initials LOCOG - to deliver the event timetable and to showcase the sport for audiences worldwide. All that takes place in facilities built by the ODA and about to be handed to an organisation sadly lacking in initials - the Olympic Park Legacy Company.

This may sound complicated, but the core model's actually quite simple.

• The IOC own the Olympics in perpetuity.
• A specific host city team builds and organises a particular Games.
• There's a broadcasting company to cover the events for everybody across the world
• Europe organises itself so that one body speaks for everybody

But where there's the unique challenge for the BBC this time round is in being the host nation broadcaster, so we have strong relationships with all these bodies - and as regular readers of this blog will know, we spend a lot of time talking direct to LOCOG and the other partners involved in London 2012. If the Games had been in Paris, we'd have had little if any contact with the organising committee or the Cultural Olympiad; whereas here LOCOG and its wider network add up to a crucial partnership for the whole of the BBC.

That means we have to operate collaboratively and communicate a lot. To take just one example, the Torch Relay is being planned by LOCOG along with a range of public authorities and we're working with them on the logistics of covering its journey around the UK for tv, radio and online. But the IOC are rightly protective of the special values of the Torch so they want to know what's going on; and the EBU are interested in what pictures might be available to member broadcasters across the continent.

Inevitably, then, there are checks and balances along the way: in the biggest of all international sports events, you can seldom act unilaterally - except in our UK coverage, of course - and there are multiple stakeholders to bear in mind. But it is, all the same, a cheering experience because everyone's striving towards the same goal. So even when we're in one of those "X forgot to tell Y and Y has now complained to Z" moments, the aim of a great Games in 2012 is shared by X, Y and Z - and all the other initials too.