According to Wiki (so take the info with a pinch of salt), he's a cousin of the his more famous namesake)

455 really isnt an awful lot considering there are 306 events in 28 sports over 16 days often simultaneously that need to be presented not only on tv, but radio and web too.

People think most of them will be presenters, commentators and pundits out there getting paid a fortune for a jolly, the reality is that most of that 455 will be cameramen, technicians, directors, producers, engineers etc, as well as freelance journalists.

Its an absolute myth that the BBC is the incredibly wasteful behemoth put about by free market ideologues who hate the fact that there isnt a profit to be snaffled up by making the product poorer and more expensive. For a comparison that 455 is 40% less than the number at london 2012, and about 10% less than Beijing 2008. NBC from the free market utopia that is the US will send more than 2000 staff, will screen less live coverage and will have that coverage interrupted by commercial breaks.

True. Comparing the number of BBC staff to competitors is slightly flawed. In some events you're only going to have 1 British competitor but of course it takes a team of people to provide the coverage both in front of the camera and behind it.

I mean how many support staff/coaches are going over with the athletes? That's their version of crew that you don't see on screen just like the presenters and pundits have theirs.

It should be how many British athletes AND coaches/staff/officals are going over and compare it to BBC staff, but I doubt that number makes for a sensationalistic story.

And many of those techs will be operating as freelancers too, rather than on the BBC payroll.

Actually, having heard Matt Baker's lamentable output last night, Vegas gets my vote.

Watching gb v arg" gb have been very excellent". Must be watching a different game to me , looked v dumb v 6 men for mine.

Ratchford's s twin gets the winner

They were portraying it as the best 7's game ever and Inverdale's saying this must convince the organisers to include 7's at the next Olympics. I mean it had some excitement in terms of it was close and the novelty of the 0-0 scoreline and having to go to golden point and chances went begging, but they went begging because players messed them up and GB seemed determined to throw it away.

It was like when you have a 40-36 scoreline in RL and Sky commentators try and tell you it was a classic because of how much was scored when really it was two poor defences, except this was on the other end of the scale wih no points being scored at all in normal time.

Watching footage of the South Africa win after, GB will have to be a hell of a lot better when they play them if they want to reach the gold medal match.

To be fair, Argentina more than contributed to bringing down the standard. There was a point where they had a man advantage and hoofed the ball off the park rather than keep it in the hands.

Surprised how little game time Anthony Watson is getting, given Sevens is made for a player with his strength, footwork and pace.

I can see the men mirroring the women's result and finishing fourth, losing both their games today.

The running lines from most sides in 7's is appalling. So many times they needed to just draw the man to create a huge over lap, or straighten up to hit a hole, or even just run at the gap but they spread these long looping passes while stood flat allowing the defence to slide across.

Yep agree with this, the passing and attacking play is pretty rubbish.

A choice as to whether I wanted to contribute to Graham Norton's pension pot, or to pay for Inverdale's sycophantic RU ramblings might be nice. If I don't think Sky/Virgin/Amazon etc is giving value for money I simply cancel my subscription & choose another provider who meet my needs more fully. I thought only fascist or communist regimes had State TV.

The BBC has outgrown its usefulness in these days of consumer choice.

except it hasn't as evidenced by the countries outside the UK who dont have a strong well-funded public service broadcaster who receive not only an inferior product from their public broadcasters, but also an inferior product from their commercial broadcaster.

The BBC drives up standards across the board.

Also, something that Mr Murdoch may not of have explained to you, the BBC isnt a state broadcaster. It is a public broadcaster. It doesnt belong to the government, it doesnt belong to the state. It belongs to me, you and everyone else.

The BBC offers great value for money, it offers high quality output, is a british institution, is the envy of the entire world, and is respected and trusted throughout the entire world, i can see exactly why Mr Murdoch and the far-right press barons that own most of our media output are hugely threatened by it.

Do you know, the way you have written that, one could almost be forgiven for believing that you were stating a fact.



Does anyone remember the standard of sports (of all kinds) coverage pre-Sky? - so there's one area for starters where they have not driven up standards (you might want to revise your use of the phrase "across the board" above?)
Costume dramas & natural history are the only things they appear pretty decent at. Wow wee. Oh, and using other people's money.
Whilst the BBC were critically important to world news pre-1980s they are now only as relevant as any other independent news broadcaster. CNN led the way to 24-hour news channels, online news was not pioneered by the BBC.
If we were having this debate in 1968 I think you would have a good argument; not in 2016.



My "State TV" comment was said tongue-in-cheek.



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