The BBC is hoping the Olympics will do for its digital platform what the Coronation did for television, according to the broadcaster's head of future media.
Ralph Rivera said the BBC would focus on the iPlayer and social interaction for its Olympic coverage.
"Our objective, with the Olympics, is to do what no-one else has been willing to do online around that event," said the native New Yorker, who has been in the role for five months, speaking at at W3C event in Oxford.
Rivera said he spoke to his "counterpart" at NBC Universal, which broadcasts the Olympics in the US, before starting his new role.
"There's a lot they don't do online, they don't do video, and I asked them why," he said. "It wasn't because of the technology. It was because they didn't want to turn analogue dollars into digital dimes. Because of that, they won't do everything they possibly could do for a great experience online."
"But guess what: we are. We're going to take this Olympics and - I'm learning some British - hit for six, do everything that we can possibly do online. The aspiration for us is for the Olympics to be for digital what the Coronation was for television. That's our aspiration for the Olympics."
That will include a focus on the iPlayer, but he said the web was more than a "distribution platform," and that the BBC is hoping to increase interaction and audience participation - notably by using secondary devices to enhance television viewing.
He said convergence between the web and television was no longer a "bad word", but that "tablets were making it real for a lot of people".
"The BBC doesn't have anything to fear from the internet... we embrace it," he added.
This article originally appeared at pcpro.co.uk
