Twenty Twelve plus one
There'll be a gap in our viewing from this week as Twenty Twelve comes to the end of its run on 91Èȱ¬ Four.
But there's good news for its devotees, who include most of our office and quite a number of our colleagues over at Locog.
The 91Èȱ¬ has announced there'll be a second series, and you can read the press release - including an exclusive quote from head of deliverance, Ian Fletcher.
No series is perfect, and Twenty Twelve had its critics including one of our distinguished bloggers.
But as a declared fan myself, I thought its range of characters and the writing were definitely heading for medal status - and it would have been bonkers not to commission another run given the audience figures and the buzz created by series one.
In one of those great spontaneous vox pops that sometimes happens, I heard two twenty-somethings exchanging their favourite lines from the show on the tube home from Arsenal v Liverpool - and it's further reassurance that it tickles the funny bone well outside the Olympic village.
What Twenty Twelve illustrates is that the creative departments of the 91Èȱ¬ - in this case our in-house comedy team - are busy thinking about how they can tie in with the Olympic story.
In the past few weeks, we've been dealing with everything from drama and documentary to children's programmes and music and I'm now pretty confident that there'll be some really promising stuff on screens and radios between now and the Games.
Inevitably, a number of early ideas have fallen by the wayside, but what's coming through should have enough impact to do justice to the external events of 2012.
These proposals are, of course, on top of what you might call the 'core curriculum' - the commitments we've made to the sport, the news and the cultural coverage in the next 18 months.
Here, too, the planning is into a highly detailed phase and some of it will become public soon.
We'll hear much more, for instance, about the Olympic torch relay by early summer this year and then 27 July 2011 marks one year to go to the opening ceremony - with special coverage currently being discussed.
I said in my very first blog in this space that pacing ourselves was key and we'd be guided by audience interest as we planned for 2012.
That is clearly starting to build, with evidence ranging from the millions of ticket requests, to the growing popularity of shows like Twenty Twelve and greater involvement with Olympic-related news stories.
Nobody wants to batter people into submission by the sheer volume of what we offer but helping the right ideas to come through is one of the pleasures of this job - and you'll hear about more of them here in the coming months.
I'm Roger Mosey, the 91Èȱ¬'s director of London 2012. That means I'm overseeing all the 91Èȱ¬'s 2012 preparations including not just sport but the Cultural Olympiad, our Olympic news and information services and everything that will bring the story of the London Games to audiences at home and abroad. I want to share here what we're planning - and debate some of the big issues. You can also follow me on .
Comment number 1.
At 18th Apr 2011, Quick_Single wrote:Good news Roger - I think it's been a great series. Very funny, and often very close to the truth. Can you check the link - I'm fascinated to know who wasn't a convert...!
Complain about this comment (Comment number 1)
Comment number 2.
At 18th Apr 2011, truebluegunnergooner wrote:It was a complete rip off of "The Games" from Australia
Complain about this comment (Comment number 2)
Comment number 3.
At 18th Apr 2011, Precio wrote:Why is this on the 91Èȱ¬ Sport web pages?
what next? Sports blogs on Dancing on Ice?
It is not a sports blog. Is there not an "entertainment" section on the 91Èȱ¬ website somewhere?
Complain about this comment (Comment number 3)
Comment number 4.
At 18th Apr 2011, Ian Moone wrote:Twenty Twelve is OK, pretty bog standard comedy using the Olympics as the hook, instead of, say a paper merchants or a nightclub in Bolton!
The biggest problem with it is that the real London Organising Committee are so hopeless that it would be difficult for a writing team of Hope, Cleese, Gervais and Kay to come up with examples of ineptitude worse than those provided by the real LOCOG.
Examples?..... Well did you hear the one about:
The Olympic Organising Committee that wouldn't let you submit a ticket order in March if your credit card - which had to be issued by a major sponsor - was going to expire at the end of August;
or the one about the OCOG who's countdown clock stopped working on the day it launched - at least the one counting backwards kept working;
or the one where the the contract between the hoteliers and London 2012 for rooms passed on to the official "hospitality providers" aren't contracted for commercial on-sale, which means the hoteliers can just walk away from the agreement!
Honestly you couldn't make it up! The worst thing is that LOCOG combine an attitude of arrogance and incompentance which means that they'll never learn from there own mistakes....
Complain about this comment (Comment number 4)
Comment number 5.
At 18th Apr 2011, waloudi wrote:twenty twelve was good but i was dissapionted with the limited advertising on the 91Èȱ¬ channels. Had the broadcasters bothered to advertise it more, the programme would have recieved more viewers and more credits
Complain about this comment (Comment number 5)
Comment number 6.
At 18th Apr 2011, Roger Mosey - 91Èȱ¬ Director, London 2012 wrote:Quick_Single in #1: sorry, we'll fix the link - but it's here: /blogs/thereporters/willgompertz/2011/03/twenty_twelve_missing_the_hear.html
Complain about this comment (Comment number 6)
Comment number 7.
At 18th Apr 2011, caissier wrote:I'd like to hear the blog above read by Ian Fletcher!
"No series is perfect ...."
"Inevitably some early ideas have fallen by the wayside ..."
"..... pretty confident there'll be some really promising stuff on screens ..."
hoho!
Complain about this comment (Comment number 7)
Comment number 8.
At 19th Apr 2011, Roger Mosey - 91Èȱ¬ Director, London 2012 wrote:Caissier, the only thing I can say to that is "it's all good"...
Complain about this comment (Comment number 8)
Comment number 9.
At 19th Apr 2011, caissier wrote:Roger ..... 'biglaughsmiley' to that! I guess that kind of language is hard to avoid these days ....
That's my catch-phrase now too .... "Yes ..... No .... It's all good ...." (hope/hope)
It's reassuring to know people in charge have a sense of humour ..... best
Complain about this comment (Comment number 9)