I missed October, although my bosses, Ben Gallop and Barbara Slater, both blogged, so hopefully that got me off the hook! But I'm back now, with a few things to mention.

In the case of sport, you can quite easily see why traditional headlines do not help the audience find those stories on search engines. Down the years, users of newspapers and then websites got used to seeing Liverpool referred to as the Reds, for instance, but I doubt many Liverpool fans out there search online for Reds very often. You would presumably type in Liverpool. Equally, Gerrard is not as good as Steven Gerrard if you are trying to help people find a story about that particular player.

The headlines on both the News and the Sport websites have been a set length (between 31 and 33 characters) for around seven years now, because the same stories have been used on Ceefax as well as online. Ceefax's maximum headline length is 33, and we decided that editorially anything less than 31 was too short on that platform. But although this restriction came about because of the platform, rather than for editorial reasons, we found that 31-33 characters allowed you to sum up just about any story perfectly adequately.

For this reason - and because Ceefax will survive for a few more years yet - we are keeping this length of headlines on our front page, and sport-by-sport pages (we call them indexes, or indices for the pedants in the office). But when you click through to the actual story itself, you will generally see a more expansive headline with more information to help those using search engines.

Apart from that change, it's been a quieter period for sports news recently, or it was until Thierry Henry's handball last week, which prompted a flood of interest and coverage, and saw a surge of visitors to our website.

Our live coverage of the reaction to Thierry Henry's handball

The day after the handball, last Thursday, we carried a rolling, live, text blog of the reaction to what happened. There was so much to cover, coming in thick and fast, that we felt this was the best way to present it, and it also allowed us to use contributions from our audience, via 606, Twitter and text.

If you saw this rolling text coverage on Thursday, I would be interested to know what you thought about it as a way of covering live, updating sports news. Generally, we only use it to cover actual live sport, rather than reaction to live sport!

Away from the week-to-week coverage, the two biggest events that are coming up for BBC Sport, and which we are now in the middle of planning for, are the Winter Olympics and the football World Cup.

We will roll out the first version of our Winter Olympics site in December, to coincide with the return to TV screens of a new series of Ski Sunday. The full version of the site will come in time for the start of the event itself, which takes place in Vancouver from February 12-28.

By the time we get to the event, our site will have live streaming of all the TV coverage (for UK users only) plus catch-up video for those that find the time difference (Vancouver is eight hours behind GMT) difficult.

There will be live text commentary, Tweets and blogs from reporters including Sir Matthew Pinsent and Lizzie Greenwood-Hughes, schedule, results and medals tables, reports and photo galleries, venue guides, sport-by-sport guides, athlete profiles, and more.

The next big date for the World Cup is the draw in Johannesburg on 4 December. Again, we will have some brand new content in time for that, with much more to follow when the tournament gets a little nearer (it's 11 June to 11 July).

Plans for the World Cup are a little less advanced than for Vancouver, but I will keep returning here to update, and it's definitely worth checking the site around the day of the draw for some content that ought to really whet the appetite ahead of football's greatest event, which is now a mouth-watering six-and-a-bit months away!

Lewis.

Lewis Wiltshire is the Editor of the BBC Sport website.

First of all, it's timely that there is a question here that relates to rugby union coverage, specifically because just this week we announced a significant autumn season of rugby on the BBC spanning BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, Radio 5 Live, BBC Sport Online and BBC Red Button.

All of the Wales and Scotland matches will be broadcast live, while there will be highlights of England's matches against Australia, Argentina and New Zealand.

This weekend I'm also delighted that we've got international rugby league back on the BBC when the England and Australia game is broadcast live - this being the first rugby league international on our network for nine years.

In relation to the NFL query: we show and are showing the Superbowl final live and in the past we have indeed shown the Wembley NFL game as a simulcast broadcast with Sky. This year, though, we felt it was better value for licence fee payers if we showed this clash as a highlights package.

Sport on the BBC has a number of roles and it is not always to chase ratings but to provide coverage of mass popular sports as well as those that would not get the same exposure elsewhere. So while not every sport is to everyone's liking, we're attempting to attract a cross section of licence fee payers.

The Government's listed events review is currently ongoing and the results should be known by the end of the year, but you can look at our submission in full here, which should answer some of your questions.

As for the question about more details on specific events - a lot of these are still in the planning stages, but you will hear more about them as they start to be confirmed.

To read more or comment on this post go to the About The BBC blog.

It has been an exhilarating few months for BBC Sport but also a challenging one with the planning of significant outputs such as the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the 2012 London Olympic Games and the move to Salford all in the pipeline.

These challenges are being met in a sports broadcasting climate that is significantly evolving, with a number of major issues taking centre stage.

Today, in Westminster, I addressed a group of MPs and experts on one of the most emotive issues currently facing the industry - the government's review of listed events legislation.

For the BBC, the debate on the review is very simple.

Free-to-air listed events benefit audiences in a way that few other television events can manage. The arguments for protecting these events of major national resonance, such as the Olympics and Wimbledon, are as relevant today as they were when the system was first put in place.

In a diverse society and fragmenting media landscape, a big sporting moment is one of the few places where people can come together and unite. Major sporting events available on a universal, free-to-air basis must continue to be a cornerstone of our public service broadcasting system and are arguably more important than ever.

And we know that audiences agree.

Research has also told us that there are a core group of fans who are willing to pay to watch sport on television, but that leaves millions who only watch sport on free-to-air-channels. A significant majority of viewers would be lost to sport if they had to pay for it and in that context I believe that making major changes to the current listing structure would irreparably damage the cultural fabric of the UK.

We want to maintain access to sport for people who don't want to pay subscriptions; and, even more crucially, we see it as a public service commitment to help bring different and less mainstream sports to our mass-audience channels.

So with that, I'd like to move on to talking about all of the other things BBC Sport has on its plate at the moment.

In 2008 the BBC broadcast 1,077 hours of sport on terrestrial TV and 3,500 on our interactive services. On radio we broadcast 4,300 hours of output on 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra. We currently show a total of around 57 varieties of sport a year. We are also in the throes of a revolution in the way in which audiences expect their content delivered. Alongside television, that means online, mobile and red button services playing an important role in delivering our content as the national broadcaster.

As we are currently focused on events such as the Vancouver Winter Olympics in February 2010, next year's Football World Cup in South Africa and of course London 2012 - the most important planned event in the UK in our lifetimes and the biggest challenge ever to face BBC Sport - cross-platform services are crucial for all broadcasters in order to fully serve audience demands.

The Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg will host the 2010 World Cup final

But there is another serious issue which I feel the BBC can play a role in and it is one that is affecting the future of this nation's health.

The British Heart Foundation has recently released research which shows that just one in eight children benefits from the recommended amount of daily exercise.

Their study concluded that more than two-thirds of all British children will suffer from obesity by 2050.

This is a pressing and serious issue and both individuals and organisations can play an important role. Families, of course, are crucial in this, but government, schools and councils have an important part to play too.

Ipsos MORI research indicates that watching live sport on TV can genuinely promote interest in sport, with 43% of UK adults saying that they have become more interested in sport as a result of watching it on TV, and for those who never participate in sport the result is 29%.

But the BBC as the national broadcaster can also have an important role here.

The power of high-quality sports broadcasting can be a powerful tool in inspiring young people to take up sport and increase participation across the country.

To read more or comment on this post go to the About The BBC blog.

My colleague Rahul Chakkara, who runs the red button platform for the BBC, has explained on his blog that High Definition is being launched on Freeview.

We know from the feedback we get that HD is increasingly popular with sports fans and this development will mean that even more viewers get to watch BBC Sport's big events in the best possible quality. Next year promises to be a big year for sport - the World Cup, Wimbledon and the Open golf will all now be broadcast in HD on Freeview.

Our approach to big sporting events like Formula 1, Wimbledon or the World Snooker Championships, has been to offer as much extra choice as possible - and on Freeview that has often meant providing two additional video streams. Similarly, during busy periods there are times when the red button allows us to broadcast more than one sport simultaneously.

The BBC's red button coverage is changing

With the arrival of HD, one of those red button streams will be going from Freeview. So unfortunately this will limit the number of choices we can offer.

There are some important points to make here:

Firstly, and crucially, it is worth stressing that this change only applies to Freeview. The other digital TV platforms, that is satellite (including Freesat), and cable - which for technical reasons have always offered more choice than Freeview on the red button - are unaffected.

Secondly, the sport that will be going from Freeview will still be available online. The BBC Sport website offers the full range of video streams that you see on satellite and cable - and the internet is an increasingly popular means for fans to follow their favourite sport. Hundreds of thousands of people now watch sport on this website every day.

Thirdly, we are looking to provide alternative ways to cover big events - including options to broadcast more sport on the BBC's linear digital channels.

BBC Sport has always tried hard to ensure that a schedule of sport coverage is available both Online, in TV listings magazines; within the Red Button service and via the Now/Next option on your on-screen electronic programme guides. This latter option will help you to find the Sport content that you are looking for and record it if your Freeview device allows it.

And finally we are working with colleagues in the BBC and beyond to develop the next generation of technologies that will help provide even more choice for viewers. The buzzword here is IPTV but in practical terms this simply means the amount of choice that is currently provided on the web would in future be available on TV as well. The aim is that the first set-top boxes with this kind of capability will be in the shops some time next year.

So, in conclusion, from October 27 the Red Button sport video on Freeview will be impacted - but despite the limitations of this platform, BBC Sport remains committed to finding other ways to bring the latest action to our audience.

There's always a lot of debate among us about who will get which award. However, there is one award the programme gives out which is completely in your hands, from the point of view of the entrants.

It's our Sports Unsung Hero Award, given to someone who gives their time and talent for free in order to enable others to participate in sport.

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They are the bedrock of British sport as we know it, and sport would be unable to function without them.

I know from my own experience how much the people behind the scenes mean to sport.

My six-year-old son Reece is a football fanatic and plays three times a week for his local under-sevens team Marple Athletic, he just loves it.

As a family we got so much pleasure when he scored a hat-trick in the team's first league game of the season last week.

But Reece's team would not be able to survive without the amount of hard work put in by a group of dedicated volunteers helping coach, support and develop the players.

That often involves giving up hours of their own time at weekends when they could easily be spending time with their own families

So we encourage you to put forward someone who you feel is an unsung hero by filling out the nomination form and sending it to us by 30 October.

All nominees will be carefully scrutinised with the 15 regional winners being chosen by judging panels which include leading figures from the sporting world and representatives from the BBC's nations and regions.

An overall winner will eventually be selected from those 15 and announced live during the programme in Sheffield on 13 December.

We've had some fantastic winners over the seven years the award has been running:

Trevor Collins was our winner in 2005. He's been a major force in swimming on the Isle of Wight, building the first pool there and then tirelessly supporting the West Wight Swimming Club since its inception over 25 years ago.

Our winner in 2006 was Val Hanover. She was named BBC Sports Unsung Hero after working with thousands of people with learning difficulties throughout North Shropshire, including putting on Special Olympics in the area since 1978.

In 2007 Margaret Simons picked up the award for her work with the Bicester football club, which she founded in 1964.
After picking up her award Margaret provided a memorable moment telling the audience in Birmingham that she fancied taking over as England boss one day!

Last December veteran boxing coach and fundraiser Ben Geyser was announced as our Sports Unsung Hero. The 70 year-old set up Dorchester Amateur Boxing Club in 2003, and is involved in coaching and raising funds for the club and charity events.

Everyone in sport knows someone like a Trevor, Val, Margaret or a Ben, someone who is helping sports organisations or teams in their community.

We'd love to hear about them, so do nominate someone and perhaps they can be in Sheffield to be given the accolade of BBC Sports Unsung Hero 2009. In the meantime, please share your Unsung Hero stories with us below.

When I wrote on the Sport Editors' Blog in August I apologised for the lack of action here during the previous few months, and said I wondered if the whole concept of hearing about the process of running a Sport site might not be a little, well, dry, compared to hearing about sport itself.

But a good number of you told me you enjoyed the entries on the Sport Editors' Blog, and suggested we keep them up.

So with that feedback in mind I thought I would come back on here now, one month after the launch of the Football League season, to find out how everyone thinks it has gone so far (none of you had seen much of what we'd planned when we last spoke - now you have had a chance to do so), and also to announce an exciting football match which will be on this site on Thursday, and to announce a couple of new blogs.

I'll also try to answer any other questions about any other aspect of our site. Perhaps I could do just that on a monthly basis if everyone thinks it would be a good forum for feedback about bbc.co.uk/sport?

One is by Phil Minshull, who will be our new European football blogger. We have felt for a while that we needed a presence on our football blog covering continental Europe. We have Tim Vickery on there covering South American football; Jim Spence covers the SPL; Phil McNulty covers the Premier League and Paul Fletcher covers the Football League; Joel Taggart covers Northern Ireland and the Wales national team is looked after by our team in Cardiff on our main site, rather than the blog site (although with the top two Welsh clubs being leading lights in the Championship, I would expect them to also feature on Paul Fletcher's blog).

Further, the BBC World Service provides a whole section on African football. But what of mainland Europe? What of Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka? What of Gael Kakuta, whose move to Chelsea from Lens resulted in Fifa banning the English club from signing any players during the next two transfer windows? What of all the so-called big-five European Leagues apart from the Premier League (namely France, Italy, Germany, Spain)?

Phil Minshull's blog will focus on the latest issues in European football

Whenever this website writes about major European transfers or a big game like Real Madrid taking on Barcelona those stories are very popular with our audience.

A report on Barcelona's league opener against Sporting Gijon - a relatively minor game - pulled in over 100,000 readers.

So we asked John Sinnott, one of our senior journalists who has written a good deal for us himself on European football, to find us a European football blogger and we eventually asked Phil Minshull, an experienced news and sport journalist who has been based in and around Madrid, for the last 12 years, to write it for us. His first blog on this site was published today.

The other new blog belongs to Neil Reynolds, and is about American football.

The fact that the NFL can sell out Wembley two years running for regular season games proves there is an audience for that sport in the UK, and last season this website had video highlights every week of the best matches (for a UK audience only).

We have an American football section with fixtures, results and standings, also. But we also felt we needed a blog, particularly since our colleagues at BBC Radio 5 live are going to have an NFL show every Sunday evening on 5 live Sports Extra this season.

One of the pundits on that Sports Extra show will be Neil Reynolds, the well-known NFL expert and former Sky Sports pundit.

Pittsburgh Steelers celebrate their Super Bowl XLIII win

Neil has agreed to write a blog for us, and like Phil Minshull, his first effort also went live on Wednesday.

I hope the blog will appeal both to NFL diehards and also to new fans who are coming to the sport all the time. Hopefully we can even build an audience ahead of the NFL game at Wembley this year, between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the New England Patriots, highlights of which will be shown on BBC television.

The Super Bowl in February will also be on BBC TV. Both those broadcasts will also be on this site for UK users.

Speaking of BBC TV output, on Thursday I am delighted to announce we will have the final of the women's European Championship football.

For those who have not been tuned to the exploits of Hope Powell's squad in Finland, England have reached the final where they will play Germany.

The match will be shown on BBC2, and also streamed live on this site, in the UK.

We will also have live text commentary of the game, plus reports, reaction and photos. BBC commentator Jacqui Oatley will be blogging before the game and again after.

The European Championship final between England and Germany on Thursday will be shown live on the BBC

So now we're back on to football, what of the Football League? One month in, I am very pleased with how it has gone.

We have the video of every game in the Football League, Carling Cup and Johnstone's Paint Trophy on the site, we have a new 'match centre' when the games are being played, and we have new statistics services including live, 'as-it-stands' tables.

For anyone who wants to know more about the new services, it's worth looking at the previous blog I wrote so I don't have to bore those who already saw that by repeating what we're rolling out.

What I would be interested to do now is hear from those who commented last time, and have now had a chance to digest that coverage, and find out what you think about it. What do you like? What could be better?

One thing I do know - it's a fantastic time of year. Reluctantly, we have had to say goodbye to the Ashes, to the golf majors, to Wimbledon (although we're very much still covering Andy Murray in New York!), and shortly to rugby league and the rest of the summer sporting calendar.

But F1 is driving towards its season's climax, football is back, rugby union is back (with a new-look Jeremy Guscott predictions column) and we've a lot to look forward to, including a Winter Olympics and a World Cup next year.

I'd be delighted to hear your thoughts on any or all of that!

Lewis.

It's when planning starts to move into top gear as many of the year's biggest sporting events have already taken place.

It is also when some of the leading contenders for the main award start to emerge.

Chris Hoy celebrates winning the 2008 Sports Personality of the Year

How wrong I was to worry! What a sporting year this has already been.

There are already some outstanding candidates to follow in the footsteps of Chris Hoy who, of course, picked up the famous trophy from Michael Johnson in Liverpool last December.

There's Britain's Jenson Button leading the Formula 1 Drivers' Championship; a number of leading potential candidates like Andrew Strauss, Andrew Flintoff and Stuart Broad from the England team that stunned the Aussies to regain the Ashes and not forgetting the likes of Claire Taylor who helped make 2009 equally as memorable for the women's cricket team.

Thousands of people lined the streets of Plymouth to welcome home teenage diving sensation Tom Daley following his gold in the 10m platform dive at the world championships in Rome after he became Britain's first ever individual diving world champion.

Andy Murray has had another amazing year - is up to number two in the world rankings ahead of Rafa Nadal. And he still has a chance of winning the US Open - arguably his best surface.

Elsewhere, with London 2012 less than three years away the British squad came home from the World Athletics Championships with their best medal haul since 1999.

Phillips Idowu's lifetime best snatched gold in the triple jump and Sheffield's Jessica Ennis is likely to get a magnificent reception at the Sheffield Arena after her amazing comeback from injury to win the heptathlon title.

British rider Mark Cavendish finished the Tour de France in spectacular style by winning the final-stage sprint on the Champs-Elysees. It was his sixth stage-win of this year's Tour and his 10th overall, while the victory also saw him become the first Briton to win the final stage of the world-famous race.

Bradley Wiggins also performed heroically to finish in 4th overall on the Tour, while on the track golden-girl Victoria Pendleton retained her sprint title at the World Cycling Championships in Poland.

And so it goes on - in swimming there were seven British medals at the World Championships including gold for Liam Tancock, Gemma Spofforth and Keri-Anne Payne.

Jockey AP McCoy rode his 3000th winner this year, what a man he is, while Phil 'The Power' Taylor surged to his 14th world title, wow.

Finally, what about golfing super-mum Catriona Matthew - she won the women's British Open by three strokes at Royal Lytham and St Annes - just 11 weeks after giving birth to her second child. She also became the first Scot to win the title.

There are so many success stories this year it promises to be a fantastic show. Check out our Sports Personality temperature check for more on this year's potential contenders.

And there is still plenty more sport to come, including the conclusion of the US Open tennis, the World Road Championships and the final Fifa 2010 World Cup qualifying matches.

Wayne Rooney is just one of the potential candidates who could make the final shortlist.

Overall it promises to be a great night of celebration in Sheffield on 13 December in front of a record crowd of 10,000.

There'll be plenty of other great achievements and moments to remember as well like Usain Bolt's latest astonishing achievements at the World Athletics Championships and Roger Federer's amazing feat of breaking Pete Sampras' all-time record for grand slam victories.

The event will again be hosted by Sue Barker, Gary Lineker and Jake Humphrey and tickets will go on sale next month with full details appearing on the Sports Personality web site.

In the meantime there will be plenty more twists and turns as the race hots up to become the 2009 BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

The top 10 contenders, once selected by sporting experts from within the media, will be announced during the One Show on BBC1 at the end of November and the winner will again be voted by the public via a telephone vote during the live show.

The BBC won the rights to be a broadcast partner of the Football League back in 2007, as part of a joint bid with Sky, who will be the primary rights holder. Thus, from Saturday 8 August 2009, there will be a TV highlights show on Saturday nights on BBC TV after Match of the Day ("The Football League Show") wrapping up all the games from that day's matches in the Championship, League One and League Two, and on top of that, there will be an awful lot of highlights to watch for UK users on this website.

Namely, this website will be bringing you video highlights of every game in the Coca Cola Football League, Carling Cup and Johnstone's Paint Trophy. That is quite a simple way of stating what you will see on bbc.co.uk/football. How it gets there is a little more complicated.

BBC Sport is in partnership with an independent production company, IMG, as well as BT, on this project. Hence all of the 'film' (the industry term is "rushes") captured by the camera operators at each and every ground is sent to BT Tower in central London on the evening of the game. Here the rushes are edited into neat packages, ready for publication on the website at midnight the following day.

So, I will take a moment to clarify that, because it is not an easy thing to explain. We are allowed to publish from midnight the day after matches. We will try to get some content up on the stroke of midnight, but most of it will go live the following morning.

That means, if your team plays on a Saturday in any of the competitions I outlined above, you can expect to see a video edit of that game (approx two-five minutes) on this website when you get to your desk at 9am on Monday mornings. If your game is on a Tuesday night, check in with us on the Thursday morning. Sunday game? We should be showing that to you on Tuesday mornings. You get the picture!

In addition to the match edits, we will also offer a video edit rounding up all of the games from each division (one edit for each division) after each full programme of fixtures.

If you really cannot wait to see your team's goals online, there are two other options I can point you to. The Saturday night Football League Show will be on the BBC iPlayer from Sunday mornings, and a lot of club websites will be offering their own games earlier than we are allowed to, mostly (I believe) on a subscription basis.

The BBC will also have 10 live Championship games on TV this season, plus one leg of each Carling Cup semi-final, and the final itself. Each of those live games will be streamed on this website (again, for UK users only), starting with West Brom v Newcastle this coming Saturday; two of Sir Bobby Robson's clubs and, coming so soon after his death, it should be a poignant occasion.

Beyond video, this site will also see some changes to the way we present live football coverage this season.

It used to be the case that our match previews used to become a bit, well, empty while the match was going on. We used to put "Match report to follow later" there, while a separate page carried a feed of live data, which we get from the Press Association who have reporters at every ground. Hardly an ideal user experience.

Well, we think we've fixed that now.

When you read our match previews you will effectively be looking at what will become a 'match centre' for that game. When the game starts, all the live data from PA will feed straight into that page, and the report will also appear there, and then finally, after the delay outlined above, the video from that match. Some of this content - principally the live data from PA - will be available on our mobile site for the first time.

You should also see a bunch of new features including live scores modules on the right-hand side of our much-loved text commentaries; as-it-stands tables which means every time a goal goes in, the table will automatically update to show how things would look if the score stayed that way; an easy-to-view guide on club pages to your team's last three games, next three games, and others. Most of these new features will update automatically without you needing to wear out your put-upon F5 key!

I have probably bored all but our most fanatical users into submission by now, so I shall stop, but I'm happy to answer any queries about Football League coverage on the web, or any other aspect of our website, and if your question is about the TV coverage, I am not responsible for that, but I'll see if I can find the answer - or get somebody more qualified to post here.

Lewis.

PS - it's been a while since we updated this Sport Editors Blog. Sorry. I tend to think that a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff on the website is a little dry! Plus a lot of our TV 'talent' now have blogs where a lot of issues to do with TV coverage tend to get discussed, eg Jake Humphrey's blog. Hence this area has become a little neglected. But I am happy to blog here if there's enough interest. I also won't take any offence if you choose to tell me that having read this one, you're happy to not see any more!

Our live coverage starts on BBC Two. Over the course of the four days we will have over 40 hours of coverage on BBC One and BBC Two. BBC Red Button will also broadcast comprehensive coverage on each day of The Open, providing viewers with the choice to select a three-hole option where you can see play exclusively through holes 9, 10 and 11.

For those of you who want to stay up to date with the latest action during the day, while at work, BBC Sport Online will be carrying live streaming of all of the action from the course, along with rolling highlights, live leaderboard, live text commentary, blogs, news and archive footage from previous Opens.

In addition to all of this, John Inverdale will be presenting extensive coverage on Radio 5 live including 45 hours of scheduled coverage bringing all of the build up ahead of the tournament and four days of live action.

Even if you still manage to miss any of the live action, you can log onto BBC iPlayer where you can access all of the coverage from the day's play.

While I'm writing about the Open and what you can expect from the BBC's coverage, it seems right for me to address an issue that has been covered in some of the papers in recent days regarding the size of BBC teams at Outside Broadcasts. I think it's important to provide some context as to why we have the level of staff that we do here at Turnberry.

As the official broadcast partner for The Open we provide coverage both to audiences in the UK and over 100 countries around the world. As part of that responsibility the BBC has to ensure that the entire infrastructure is in place before coverage can begin. This involves miles and miles of cable being laid and maintained, feeding 69 cameras, across a course 7,200 yards long, covering a tournament over four days featuring 160 players. All of this must be put in place before any pictures can be brought to your screen.

The Open Championship is a major British sporting event and undoubtedly one of the highlights of the international golf calendar; as you can see it is also one of the most complicated outside broadcasts that we do at the BBC. Unlike other broadcasters the BBC coverage, as outlined above, is also unique in that it brings comprehensive coverage across a radio network, TV, Red Button, Online and iPlayer. Through all this extensive output, every member of the BBC team has a clear and accountable role, working very hard and long hours to offer the unparalleled coverage that you tell us you want.

The final point I wanted to clarify on this subject is that of accommodation. No member of the BBC staff will be staying in a hotel during the Open. The Open Championship is often held at venues such as Turnberry, where there is very little accommodation. We therefore use caravans, university halls accommodation and rented houses, which present the most cost-effective solution for housing the team. This applies to all BBC staff at the Open, including presenters and commentators.

It just remains for me to say that we hope you enjoy our coverage of what promises to be another classic Open Championship. Can Padraig complete the hat-trick? Will Tiger take the plaudits once again? Or will someone else make their own piece of history at Turnberry? Could that even be Tom Watson, after his superb opening round? All will be revealed come Sunday...

The event, which is the largest international multi-sport event outside of the Paralympics, will see 174 medallists from Beijing competing in wheelchair basketball, swimming, track cycling and athletics.

It will be an excellent opportunity for the public to watch the British medallists and some new exciting talent in action, especially as we look forward to 2012, and in addition, many of the world's top names including South African swimmer Natalie Du Toit and amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius are competing.

The concept of the event was formed after the Athens Paralympics to ensure that there was greater high-level competition and media coverage between Paralympic years.

Traditionally, there was little of both; how could the media and the public follow and identify some of the athletes and understand the sports with some of its quirks including classification when they were only seeing it every four years?

Since the Paralympic World Cup started, the successful multimedia coverage of the event has helped to propel new names into the public arena and indeed last year's event was the first time we saw the likes of swimmers Heather Frederickson and Sam Hynd in action - both went on to win gold in China.

The Paralympic World Cup is an important in showcasing the BBC's continued commitment to disability sport and in reaching a mainstream audience.

There is a feeling that the general public were enthused and captivated by our coverage, both from Athens and Beijing, and talking with the regional radio stations and local people here in Manchester I honestly believe that the public have a far greater knowledge and understanding than they did a few years ago. Most of them certainly understand that Paralympic athletes train as hard as their able-bodied colleagues.

Significant changes have also been made within the sports themselves with Paralympic athletes in cycling, swimming and athletics starting to get the same levels of support as their Olympic counterparts and it is critical for the success of Paralympic sport that this trend continues.

The last few weeks have been extremely busy in ensuring that there is as much coverage across all the BBC platforms to promote British and International athletes and one of my roles is to ensure that if we are covering, for example, the cycling team, can we provide content for all of the television, radio and online outlets.

The event comes to a conclusion on Bank Holiday Monday on BBC Two with Steve Cram presenting live from Aquatics Centre from 1500-1715 BST when we see some top-class international swimming combined with extensive highlights from the finals of the wheelchair basketball and the best of the action from athletics and cycling.

For the first time, Paralympic Sport will be broadcast on 5 Live Sports Extra, when the digital station will cover the track cycling and wheelchair basketball on Friday afternoon.

As the action gets underway I am looking for some electric basketball action and apart from watching the likes of Paralympic gold medallists Dave Weir and Jody Cundy in action, I am really hoping that after a injury-ravaged 2008, 800m runner Danny Crates can make a successful return to top-level competition on Sunday in what will be his 'Paralympics'

If you are in and around Manchester, you won't miss that the event is taking place and we hope the good folks of Manchester come out to support the event.

I'd be interested to know what you think about our coverage of the Paralympic World Cup. Let me know what you liked and whether you would like to see us do anything differently.

Gabby has done the interview in Vegas - she filmed it with producer Jason on Wednesday, and having spoken to her, she says they were fantastic. As soon as the tapes have safely arrived back here in London, the team will be busy editing the 30 minute special - it's a case of all hands to the pump, as editing a 30-minute show in a 'documentary style' is not easy.

It is a real coup - not just for us but for Wimbledon as well. Steffi and Andre transcend tennis - they are out there on their own, like Woods, Federer, Ronaldo...they are indeed big hitters.

So, what did they talk about? Well, you'll just have to wait and see. Yes, we saw Steffi in all her pomp in her playing days power her way to 22 Grand Slam singles titles and yes, many of us wanted to be Agassi, who we witnessed through various metamorphoses in a career that saw him win eight Slams, but as a married couple, we've not seen them together, until now.

All I can say is tune in on Monday night at 2310 BST on BBC One to see them as you've never seen them before. It isn't the greatest slot in the but to be on the main network in the country is something we are very happy about.

"Happy", though, isn't a word to describe some of your comments about our guest set-up on Inside Sport. I respect your opinions but as the editor I also have an opinion and I think the guests we have had on so far have worked well, offered new elements to the show and given it energy, and that isn't being disrespectful to who we've had on before.

I deliberately wanted to look at this part of the show and I'm happy with how its working. Here's why...Geoff Boycott and David Brailsford were fantastic value last week and Boycott alone generated more than 70,000 hits on the website following his comments on the England cricket team ahead of the Ashes.

His quotes also made all the newspapers the next day...but 70,000 hits... Austin Healey was in the studio on 20 Apri and talked about who might be in, or out, of the British and Irish Lions squad to be selected the next day - he was spot on with his inside line on that. We also had AP McCoy talking about his future just two days after his 14th successive championship title.

So, while we have generated news lines, I've also used those guests to get an insight into their sport from the sofa as well as in the usual big interviews and features we do. So, you have your opinion and I have mine. As a programme maker you want to engage as much as possible. My idea for this show is to make entertaining television with strong journalism and questioning in the studio being a huge part of that...but in television you also have to entertain and later at night you have to keep things moving even more and sometimes have an element of surprise.

The element of surprise this week? Wait and see....

I want to concentrate today on two words: 'partnership' and 'focus'. Partnership is something you'll be hearing about a lot from the BBC, and I want to explain what it could mean around the Olympics and Sport; while focus is what I believe we increasingly need as broadcasters - and as a country and as a sports industry - to deliver the Olympics in the best possible way.

We start in the BBC from the principle that the licence fee is a unique privilege - bringing with it the responsibility to make every pound work for our audiences, and to support the wider creative industries. It's been independently estimated by PWC that the BBC adds £6.5 billion to the UK economy - nearly twice the value of the licence fee; and of that fully £5 billion is of benefit to the creative economy.

That emphatically includes sport, and I'm proud as the outgoing director of sport that our team renewed so many of our major contracts and guaranteed the future on free-to-air television of Wimbledon, the Six Nations, Match Of The Day, Formula 1 and all the rest. Audiences expect top sport on the BBC, and there's a clear benefit to society of having the biggest British events and winners available to all. It puts sport at the heart of our collective national experience; and it guarantees involvement when those events are seen by millions. That's why we support the maintenance of listed events which help to ensure that major sport is available to all citizens.

But the commitment goes beyond that. I was delighted that we were able to do a joint deal with Sky for coverage from next season of the Championship and Leagues One and Two: there's a clear public service fit in offering higher profile coverage of the Football League, and in spreading the benefits of our rights investment. It dovetails with the way the BBC is now trying to spread the licence fee more evenly around the UK: everything from BBC Sport's move to the North West of England - an investment worth hundreds of millions of pounds - to last week's announcement that Sports Personality Of The Year will be broadcast from Sheffield. It's the latest stage of the journey that has taken us from a studio in Shepherd's Bush to becoming a flagship event for the regions, as anyone who experienced brilliant nights in Liverpool and Birmingham will know.

Then we offer coverage on our range of platforms to an array of other sports that are outside the more predictable diet of football. Some are the obvious headliners like this year's world championship swimming, world championship athletics and world championship gymnastics from the O2. But we'll also have white-water canoeing on BBC One at the end of the month; there'll be the European three-day event championships; and extensive coverage of the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester. I know my successor as director of sport, Barbara Slater, is keen to see how we can maintain and expand the breadth of that portfolio.

That fits into what I'll be doing around the Olympics: making sure that we work closely with the various sporting bodies involved (like this one) - and, of course, with the other main stakeholders such as LOCOG, the IOC, DCMS, the Mayor's office and all the commercial partners too. There will clearly be a significant investment of the licence fee around the Olympic Games of 2012, but it's more than just about money: our partnership agenda overall is about the way we can work with people in fresh ways, the aim that we transcend former rivalries to produce real value for the creative industries and for the UK.

So we know this is an unprecedentedly tough commercial environment. We know there's deep pain in the economy. But we believe in the broadcasting sector that the licence fee is a major part of the solution: a strong BBC is a guarantor of strong British content and of investment in vital sectors like sport. For the Olympics, we will offer thousands of hours of coverage on a multiplicity of platforms and devices - giving sport its best ever showcase, and driving the use of new digital services in the year of analogue switch-off. Just as we did with Beijing, we want to celebrate British success; encourage interest in British sport; and give impetus to British innovation on the TV, on radio, online and on mobile.

To take just one example of that - video streaming of the Olympics in the UK increased by a factor of 13 between Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008. We led Europe in the take-up of viewing online, and we had almost 40 million requests for content. Just imagine how that can expand even further by 2012, and how it has the potential to be the breakthrough moment for digital services that the Coronation back in 1953 was for television. The impetus comes not from our own imagination but simply from the needs of our audiences: it's what they're demanding, what they expect. And the BBC - working in partnership with the Olympics, the sports of the UK and the digital creative industries - can help deliver it.

But I don't want to lose sight of the 'f-word': focus. None of this will be achieved if we have a scatter-gun approach, and it seems to me we're in a critical phase of the Olympic planning. There was the 'Road to Singapore' - the battle against the odds to win the Games and the successful search for innovation in our bid. There was then, you might say, the barrier of Beijing: the fact that we had the challenge of the Games in China before it was our turn. Certainly in the BBC it meant that between 2005 and 2008 we were planning much more for Beijing than for London. Well, now it really is us next. It's only just over three years to go; and for the broadcasters, for the organisers and for the country it feels like it's time to make our minds up. The decisions now are not about 328 things we might like to do; it's about what we're actually going to do. Prioritisation from amid the promises, hard choices emerging from the options that were kicked around in the past.

In the BBC we have a simple prescription for what should emerge from this when we do the process internally. Fewer, bigger, better. Go for the events that show the real benefit of the investment of time and money; concentrate on those moments that the audience will remember because they're of high quality and demonstrable value. It's what I think should happen with the Cultural Olympiad - where we're also working with a range of partners - and it's just as relevant for sport.

And let me explain what I mean. It doesn't imply we should be any less comprehensive in our reporting: with our website now at the heart of our operation, and with digital radio and television services, there's more content than ever before. There's sports news, video and audio on bbc.co.uk/sport around-the-clock, reaching 8 million or more people each week.

But for the breakthrough moments you need the right events and the right story to tell. Thirty minutes of perfectly-ok content on TV or radio once in a while doesn't put your sport into the national consciousness. What does shift opinions is the great event with the fantastic achievement or the memorable personalities: and that's not just something like Federer v Nadal at Wimbledon. It's also the British Curling Gold watched by 6 million people at midnight in the Winter Olympics; it's Chris Hoy's story being told for some years - and across the BBC's services in Scotland and UK-wide, and in events like the world track cycling we showed last Spring from Manchester - well before the triumphs of Beijing; and it's by following our young track stars as they break records in Gateshead, and as they show us their commitment in programmes like Olympic Dreams, before they step out into the stadium at Stratford.

In other words, when we say that we want partnerships - and we do - there is just that one piece of conditionality about focus. We need your help in telling us what is editorially compelling, what will attract people's attention. No-one has infinite resources and the choices sometimes will be about covering fewer things because we - and the industry in general - have to live within budgets and identify what's really a priority. But with 'fewer' comes 'bigger' and 'better' for the rest: using our range of services to reach the maximum number of people, spreading the word as widely as possible and getting more involvement around the landmark events.

There will be no bigger event in the UK in our lifetimes than the London Olympics, so we have that task squarely before us - and I've every confidence that we'll collectively rise to that challenge. The real question, and the area where we most need to work together, is how we build up to that summer over the next three years; and then how we capture the best of it and turn it into a legacy that will last. I can think of no better framework than a series of partnerships to deliver that; and I can think of no greater necessity than to make the choices soon about which ideas we'll back and what the best outcomes should be. We're ready to take that on, and we'd love to work with you to achieve a great result for this country.

Sports Personality moved from the BBC's Television Centre in London three years ago and it was always our intention to create a sporting road show which would move around the UK.

After two hugely successful years at the NEC in Birmingham, the event reached new heights in Liverpool last year with a record crowd of more than 9,000.

I don't think I'll ever forget the incredible reception our Olympic and Paralympic heroes got in the Arena or the unique Liverpool welcome Manchester United legend Sir Bobby Charlton received when collecting his Lifetime Achievement award. .

Snooker is just one of the many events that take place in a city that has a wonderful sporting heritage.

There's an enviable choice of world-class facilities including the prestigious English Institute of Sport Sheffield, Don Valley Stadium, an Olympic size swimming pool and Europe's largest ice complex to name just a few. Sheffield is also home to two great football teams in Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United.

The Sheffield Steelers Ice Hockey team have just completed the double after a magnificent season.

And Sports Personality will take place at the Sheffield Arena where the Steelers play their home matches and the event will be watched by the biggest crowd ever of more than 10,000. Full ticket details will be announced later in the year.

I would also like to say we did look seriously at taking the event outside England but for a number a number of logistical and availability issues it wasn't possible, but we do hope to do so some time in the future.

And so on to the event itself. After the drama of last year most people expected this one to be a much quieter sporting year. How wrong they were.

We've already had an incredible Six Nations Championship with Ireland winning their first Grand Slam for 61 years; Jenson Button's made a flying start to the Formula 1 season; England's cricket team have won the women's World Cup, Andy Murray continues his march towards the top of the world tennis rankings and we're set for incredible end to the football season.

With plenty of big events still to come, there will certainly be plenty more to celebrate and look back on in Sheffield on 13 December.

First up - the time slot. Unfortunately it won't change and I know that it is a huge issue among you but the schedulers have it there and despite efforts on our part to try to get an earlier slot, it won't happen and it will remain just after 11pm on BBC One. Anyone of course would want an earlier time but at the end of the day we are on the main channel in the country - and that is great.

And about the show. The studio is intimate and that is what I wanted the new look to achieve and I think bringing the guests closer to Gabby on the sofa also helps too.

Well, some may like the change others may not. It's all about opinion.

I thought Des, Steve and Tony did a good job - I was the assistant editor in the first two series and helped bring the guys on board in the first place. But I think you should always look at freshening things up - change can be good - and bringing in the people I aim to have in the studio will add to the show in a different way, I think.

And yes, there may be times when Gabby does an interview in the studio too - I intend to have variety in the programme and in the studio. I think you should always be flexible and if there is a guest that has very strong opinions, go for it and give them more time.

And also having specialist guests, who have been there and done that and can talk eloquently, I believe is of real value. For example, Jonathan Agnew is coming in on show two this Monday (13 April) to talk about cricket off the back of a piece on the IPL in South Africa.

Finding the right mix is always tricky... to me the guests really need to add to the films and the features, otherwise you could easily produce this programme a la Panorama and just have Gabby doing post produced links into films and then get rid of the studio.

There are many ways you can produce this show - but guests and chat add to the intimacy and more importantly purpose of the show. Also what you have to balance is time. Effectively these shows are 29 minutes from start of titles to the end. In an ideal world, I would like more....

As for Colin Montgomerie on show one... Some of you have pointed out correctly that he wasn't on the show when billed. Well, working in television can be most exhilarating but unfortunately at times frustrating and disappointing.

Monty had agreed for some time to appear on the show - but late last week he pulled out. It was massively disappointing but you have to move on. So, you count to 10 or even 10,000 and have to deal with it and then you have to find a solution.

And with it being show one - you want a big name that has relevance.

We'd spoken to Tim Henman about coming on the show on 18 May as we are looking at doing a tennis feature. I spoke to his agent Caroline about our predicament as I wanted Tim - who is knowledgeable about so much sport - to come on to replace Monty and thankfully he did. Tim was great - as was Alan Hansen - and talking about how Henman dreaded Saturday afternoon as a player was most revealing.

So, the season is up and running. Do keep your opinions coming in because I really want to know what you think. I intend to have quirky items in there as well as the films and features - any bits of fun (like the top 10 sporting earners) that has relevance we may do - so your thoughts on those are welcome too.

Coming up on the show on Monday is a piece from Matthew on the IPL in South Africa, an interview with Jimmy White and joining Gabby in the studio are Jonathan Agnew and John Parrott.