Numbers

It's never my intention to be unhelpful to the BBC, but the house-organ Ariel currently offers a slightly misleading headline "Over 700 BBC staff to work on Olympics".  It goes with the story that the BBC has obtained accreditation for 765 staff for the event. This means they get badges which will get them into the various Olympic sites. I suspect, with 33 hours of tv coverage for each day, and more online and on radio, the total number of 19,995 BBC staff doing something in connection with bringing the event to air will be much higher. They just won't be at the party.

And even at 765 passes, way up from Bejing, there's internal grumbling at who exactly has the accreditation. World Service Radio (weekly reach over 40 million) got two passes for China - but has just one for an event on its doorstep.  All seems a bit odd, judged against the station's slogan: "London Calling: The City of 2012, brought to life by the BBC".