The U.K. may not be able to boast any sort of dominion over the world. They may not understand when Americans refer to the pound sign on a telephone, and they may confusedly add the letter "u" to all sorts of words -- colour, rumour, flavour. There is one thing the U.K. can do that would not work in the U.S. or Canada, however: they can provide comprehensive coverage of the 2012 Olympics in London.
If you think about it, BBC's effort is actually a huge achievement. In the United States, NBC networks were responsible for the coverage for the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing. Even with few breaks, there was still a lot the channels missed. Granted, anything important was also readily available online, but it isn’t even close to perfect coverage. As recently as the Beijing games, though, the BBC was able to air around 75 percent of all the live action in the games with the help of supplementing Internet channels. Three-fourths coverage is astounding, and now BBC has topped itself by offering full coverage of all 24 Olympic events.
Roger Mosey, BBC Director of Sport, is currently disinclined to announce how much money the network will be spending on the summer Olympics coverage. One thing is for certain, though. The network has thrown in a ton of money for coverage, but it has definitely reached its limit in certain cases. Initially, BBC also wanted to include 3D television into its full-coverage broadcast. They have now reneged, due to “capacity issues.” If interested in the 3D component THR has the full story on site.
