BBC REPLIES TO COMPLAINTS ABOUT OLYMPICS COVERAGE

After 303 viewers complained about its coverage of the women’s snowboarding contest on Sunday, the BBC has acknowledged that its announcers let their excitement get “the better of them, and this is something we will work on for future events.” Viewers had criticized the announcers for cheering when one of the snowboarders for another country lost control and hit the ground. Others complained when the broadcast team announced that Britain’s Jenny Jones had won the gold medal when in fact she had won the bronze. Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that some viewers said the commentators were “puerile and hyperactive.” Nevertheless, the BBC observed on Monday that Jones’s medal was the first one ever won by the U.K. for an Olympics snow event. The BBC’s sports chief Philip Bernie took note that the announcers have known Jones for a long time. “It’s a young sport and young people don’t sit and watch it po-faced, they watch it with great excitement,” Bernie said. “We want to convey that excitement but we have to strike a balance and we are always talking to the team about that. When it strays we have a really good production team who will bring it down a notch.”