If you’re anything like me and a massive sports fan, this summer has the perfect line up.  With Andy Murray winning Wimbledon along with Wales’ triumph at the Euros (I grew up there – so not just riding the glory wave) it’s got off to a great start.  And, with the Olympics starting in just under two week’s time, it’s about to kick off all over again. 

Our goal is to make this year’s summer of sport and live events the best ever, by making it more personal and relevant to you. 

Over 7 million of you have signed into the 主播大秀 in just over a year – and over a third of you come back on a monthly basis to benefit from a more personal experiences.  And since , we’ve seen huge numbers of people benefit from these signed-in experience.

As you might know, we offer push alerts for football matches, cricket teams, F1 races, rugby union and rugby league teams, and live event reminders. We recently launched news alerts for major sports - so people can get the biggest headlines for their favourite sports first.  Since launching this:

• 2.2 million of you have received alerts in the 主播大秀 Sport app
• We offered match alerts for every Euro team. No surprise -England and Wales were the most popular teams during the Euros
• And a massive 129,773,607 alerts were sent during the Euros

We also offered the  so that you could join leagues and compete to predict the results of Euro 2016.  This was more popular than we ever imagined with:

• 297,474 total players
• 7,277,318 predictions made
• 159,903 private league users
• And 36,842 private leagues set up

We are continually adding to the benefits you get from being signed in. For instance, last week we launched radio recommendations on the 主播大秀page. 

I can’t put my phone down.  And I can see from our stats that I’m not alone.  More and more of you are watching, listening and reading content on-the-go on your mobiles – so as previously mentioned we’ve been building a .  The app brings together the breadth and range of content from across the 主播大秀 together in one simple, easy to use app that you can customise to your tastes and interests.  So, whether it’s talked about TV, breaking news, summer trends – or the latest craze (not mentioning Pokemon Go) – you’ll be able to find the content you care about – all in one place. You can read more about it .

I’m thrilled to say that we’re launching the first version of this today – and will be listening to you over the coming weeks and months to tweak and make it the best it can be.  I can’t wait to hear what you think of it and am looking forward to rolling out even more personalised features for the Greatest Show on Earth – The Olympic Games.  Come on Team GB!

Phil Fearnley is Director 主播大秀page and my主播大秀

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Match of the Day may be one of the 主播大秀's oldest and best-loved television programmes, celebrating its 50th birthday last year, but it has also been one of the best at embracing social media. This is particularly important when audience behaviour, particularly among younger viewers, is dramatically changing in an evolving media landscape.

While the  account on Twitter has in excess of 1.5 million followers, last week the  reached the milestone of three million fans.

Although there are pages across the 主播大秀 with a larger fan-base, including 主播大秀 Sport's Facebook page with 7.8 million fans, the Match of the Day page has become one of the most successful at driving referrals, as well as encouraging people to watch the programme.

'Knowledgeable', 'Cheeky' and 'Irreverent' 

In terms of Facebook, we are really proud that Match of the Day has 1.64 million fans in the UK alone, with only Manchester United in the Premier League boasting more in the UK.

And while reach is extremely important, after the FIFA World Cup in 2014 we wanted to improve engagement.

Research showed us that our target audience wanted the tone of the Match of the Day social accounts to be slightly less serious and focus instead on being 'knowledgeable', 'cheeky' and 'irreverent.' This is hardly surprising given that 53% of the page's Facebook fans are aged 24 or under.

They also wanted the tone to mirror more closely that of the show's presenters and pundits when they tweet or post from their own accounts on social media.

From 35,000 a week to 3.7 million

During the past year we've therefore evolved our content strategy. This has been strongly influenced by analytics, looking at the frequency and timing of our posts, the style and tone in which we create content and experimenting with targeted posts aimed at reaching fans of specific teams.

The impact of this has been dramatic in driving social referrals i.e. where fans click on posts on the Match of the Day Facebook page, and come through to the 主播大秀 website.

Such has been the success of this change of strategy that, comparing the first week of September 2014 with September 2015, referrals from page posts have increased organically, using similar staffing levels, from 35,000 a week to 3.7 million in the same time period.

Importantly, our referrals strategy has not been focused on simply posting content about the most popular teams in the Premier League.

Instead, it has showcased our distinctive and diverse range of football content on the 主播大秀 from a local, national and global perspective, promoted people to play the game through Get Inspired and the FA People's Cup and driven interest in the women's game, particularly around the Women's World Cup last summer.

We don't just try to broadcast to fans on social media, but engage with them as well.

This includes regularly replying to our users, using pundits in live Q and A sessions and offering a sneak preview of the running order each weekend.

We also provide behind-the-scenes videos with the likes of Gary Lineker to promote the show, allowing fans to vote on Goal of the Month, and curating the best of social media to reflect back in broadcast (particularly ) and the .

Such has been the popularity of this engagement that this season we have launched , a digital companion on the 主播大秀 Sport website to Saturday's show, where additional tactical analysis and the best fan comments on our social media channels are reflected in our live page. Although we are only in the early stages of the season, during transmission this page is commonly the most visited page on the 主播大秀 website at that time.

Chris Hurst is Digital Development Editor, 主播大秀 Sport 

In July, we to the world. Today marks the next milestone in the project, and I’m delighted to launch the new beta website for the 主播大秀 micro:bit today, developed in collaboration with Microsoft - – let the coding begin! My colleague Sinead Rocks has blogged about the project , and I wanted to tell you a bit more about the site, what it includes and how to start using it. 

It’s been just over two months since we unveiled the alongside our 28 partners and I wanted to give you an update on what we have been up to since then as well as information on what’s coming next.

This is a massively ambitious undertaking and that’s been reflected in the levels of activity over the summer months. We have been busy getting ready to support teachers on every aspect of the 主播大秀 micro:bit, and have been in touch with schools and teachers up and down the country. Thousands have already registered and there’s still time to get involved - you can sign up using our online registration form which can be found on the 主播大秀 micro:bit website.

Engaging with schools has always been central to this educational initiative - our teams have been hard at work creating and producing all the resources teachers will need to bring it to life, allow lesson planning to start, and to make it a success in the classroom.

We want to help teachers start to plan how they will use the 主播大秀 micro:bit in their classrooms and the beta release of the new 主播大秀 micro:bit website will be arriving very soon. It has been designed to equip teachers, parents and students with a one-stop intro into everything they need to know about the 主播大秀 micro:bit, and to help teachers get going in advance of the devices arriving in schools. My colleague Leigh Aspin will blog about the website in detail when it launches but here’s a short introduction.

The brand new 主播大秀 micro:bit website contains a wealth of resources to get users started. These include a series of videos, step by step tutorials, and fun projects and resources to inspire users from the 主播大秀 and our partners, including Code Club, Code Kingdoms, Cisco, The Institution of Engineering and Technology, Kitronik, Microsoft, Technology Will Save Us and TeenTech.

Crucially, the new site includes code editors to help users start to write code for the 主播大秀 micro:bit itself. We’re releasing Microsoft Block and Touch Develop editors, with editors from Code Kingdom and Python Software Foundation coming soon. The site also includes a simulator, which will let users to get hands on, practise, and see how their coding will illuminate the LEDs and press the buttons on the device. All a key part of how teachers can start to use the site to plan lessons and activities. And we will be improving and updating the site regularly over the coming months.

This is just the start - we will be in touch with more detail in the coming weeks to help teachers get to know the 主播大秀 micro:bit and to plan creative ways to bring it to life.

As you would expect, rigorous and extensive testing of the 主播大秀 micro:bit has been another key focus over the summer. It’s a new piece of hardware developed in conjunction with a coalition of expert partners and getting the device right before we manufacture a million of them for distribution is our priority. As a result of this testing, we’ve decided to make some minor revisions to the way power is supplied around the board, as this was affecting a few devices in rare and isolated instances. This will have an impact on our timings for distribution but we are working hard to make sure you get your micro:bits as quickly as possible.

As we have always said, teachers will still get their 主播大秀 micro:bits before pupils, and we aim to start delivering devices to them before Christmas, and to children in the new year, as part of the new school term. We want to make sure that when the 主播大秀 micro:bit arrives, it has the greatest possible impact in the classroom, playground and at home, and are planning exciting programmes across 主播大秀 TV, radio and online in the new year to bring them to life.

All the organisations involved in the 主播大秀 micro:bit initiative want to inspire a new generation to get creative with digital technology – to do that we need your continued guidance and support. Together, we will make the 主播大秀 micro:bit a transformative initative, working together to achieve what none of us could on our own.

Sinead Rocks is Head of 主播大秀 Learning

Vloggers including Danisnotonfire, AmazingPhil, TomSka, Jack and Dean, Patricia Bright, Charlie McDonnell, Sprinkle of Glitter and Jim Chapman

Lyn Picken explains how the 主播大秀 is trying to teach some of our younger audience why a career in technology can be creative, fun and rewarding. 听

I love it when we open up our doors to bring audiences in to our buildings 鈥� it can be rewarding and fun to see people experience what happens behind the scenes and learn about how we do things.听 There are loads of reasons why we do this and our events can take many shapes and forms 鈥� sometimes we鈥檙e trying to understand what audiences want from us or how we can do things differently, for example, and other times we might trying to help people understand more about the way our programmes are made.

This week, on 28th January, we鈥檙e trying to help some of our younger audience know more about the different jobs people do to keep our online content going!听 Technology is hugely important at the 主播大秀 and we hope this event will help the next generation of IT experts understand more about what a technical career at the 主播大秀 could look like, and inspire them to choose IT related GCSE options at the end of this academic year. 听

Capturing young people’s intimate thoughts on film can be a challenge, especially when we’re asking them to talk about sensitive subjects like the pressures they’re subjected to online. That’s why the Be Smart team at 主播大秀 Learning decided to take an unorthodox approach to marking .

We’re installing a self-op video booth in a secondary school, so students can tell their stories on camera without all the usual film-making distractions. St Margaret Ward Catholic Academy in Stoke-on-Trent is the school taking the plunge, not because their students are any worse than other kids when it comes to online behaviour, but because they see internet safety as a big issue which they want to help us highlight. It’s a brave move, so huge credit should go to the students, parents and staff.

We’re doing this because all the research tells us that children and young people respond best to their peers. Whether they’re under pressure to take part in a dangerous prank, or to victimise someone, or whether they’re an online bully themselves, stories told by other young people are most likely to resonate and to help them cope, or change their behaviour.

The young people at St Margaret Ward are being invited to tell their personal stories: how they deal with online pressure; how they helped a friend get through a difficult episode; why they became an online bully... and what made them change. After an exhaustive compliance process, the stories will be posted online, along with links to 主播大秀 content and to external organisations that can give help and advice. We’ll be using the content on television and radio too, building it into films and radio output in the weeks following Safer Internet Day on 10th February.

It’s not the first time a video booth has been installed in a school for this reason, but we think it’s the first time it’s been done in the UK. In 2012, CBC in Canada ran a similar project, focusing on bullying. From a school roll of a thousand, 200 students made recordings. Some were very frank and moving and often positive and constructive too. Both the programme and website won numerous awards, and the school principal now frequently speaks about the positive effect of their involvement.

The Be Smart campaign is all about helping young people understand and deal with the pressures of being online. As well as the video booth, 主播大秀 Learning is helping Radio One produce a range of content fronted by hugely popular vloggers, including an hour-long live debate show. We’re also working with C主播大秀 to make sure the issues are reflected on Children’s output ranging from drama to news – and we’ve commissioned a poll to provide us with a snapshot of how the issue affects young people across the UK.

Not only that, but we want famous 主播大秀 faces to tell their stories and to give their tips and advice about how to deal with online pressure. So after its week at school, we’re taking the video booth to 主播大秀 North at Media City in Salford so some of the famous faces there can tell their stories.

There are risks involved, of course. Who knows what kind of contributions we’ll get from the students. Perhaps we won’t get any at all. But if our experiment works, get ready to hear some frank and moving personal stories from the heart of The Potteries. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Sinead Rocks is Head of 主播大秀 Learning

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Last October, Director-General Tony Hall said he wanted the 主播大秀 to embrace one big education project a year. In 2014 it's World War One. I鈥檓 delighted to announce that in 2015, the 主播大秀鈥檚 new Make it Digital initiative will shine a light on the world of digital creativity and coding. And that is exactly what we are going to do. But because there's so much to highlight we thought we'd start early, so at the start of the new school year for most, we are giving a taste of what we have planned.

The very first Make it Digital examples include our to support the new Computing curriculum that is being introduced in England. We're also launching relevant Computing content for pupils studying the subject in curricula across the rest of the UK. Our content supports both primary and secondary school pupils as well as their teachers and parents - all under the Bitesize brand for the first time. Alongside these 主播大秀 Learning projects we have some exciting children鈥檚 programmes coming out this Autumn that will help inspire our youngest audiences to discover the digital world and to take their journeys of digital discovery further. Dick & Dom's Absolute Genius will become Appsolute Genius, Technobabble will look at the technology which will shape children's lives, and Nina and the Neurons will go digital. You can find the .

Why are we doing this? This generation of coders and computing creatives are standing on the shoulders of giants. The UK is the birth place of computer science, and pioneers such as Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace and Alan Turing. We have just celebrated 25 years of the World Wide Web, created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and we are home to game-changing games makers and entrepreneurs like Michael Acton Smith from Mind Candy and Ian Livingstone.听

And the 主播大秀 has history too: back in the听Eighties we made a commitment to inspire a generation to get passionate about computing. We broadcast hundreds of hours of TV, created a new coding language, and gave millions their first taste of computing with the 主播大秀 Micro.听 It鈥檚 firmly rooted in our public service commitments and is exactly what the 主播大秀 should be doing. And in 2015 we want to capture the spirit of what we did with the 主播大秀 Micro, but this time for the digital age.

The potential for this country鈥檚 future is as rich as our past, but there are dangers. Martha Lane Fox estimates we are going to need a million more people working in the technology sector over the next听10 years 鈥� but right now many of our youngsters are lacking the digital skills they need.

A wealth of fantastic organisations are already inspiring the next generation. Organisations like Code Club, Free:formers, Apps for Good,听Coderdojo, Technology Will Save Us and Code Academy; enablers like Nesta, Nominet Trust, the Mozilla Foundation, the iDEA initiative, and the Make Things Do Stuff movement; big companies like BT, Microsoft, Google, Intel and Samsung are all running wonderful initiatives. However, it鈥檚 a very different landscape to the one we had in back in the Eighties when we launched the 主播大秀 Micro. So we鈥檝e been talking to people across the digital and educational communities to help us define what the 主播大秀 can usefully do here, and help us answer these questions:

• What can the 主播大秀 do in 2015 which no other organisation can deliver?
• What are the ways in which we can partner most effectively?

Partnerships are the key to our approach. By working in partnership with others we want to celebrate the rich heritage of this country, but we want to play our part in inspiring a new generation to get active with computing. And that has never been more important 鈥� it helps all of us be active shapers of our world, rather than passive consumers.

Our conversations have highlighted that the 主播大秀 should work with the industry, raising awareness and inspiring people to get interested in coding and digital technology.

In early 2015 we will be able to share in-depth details of what is planned and there will be something for everyone. We want to show audiences how Britain has helped shape the digital world and why digital skills matter.

We will harness the power of our biggest shows 鈥� we have so many much-loved programmes and characters that can play a role introducing people to coding and digital technology. There will be new commissions, too, including dramas and documentaries. We want to do what we do best 鈥� tell stories that inspire and move people.

We will celebrate the UK's digital heritage, raise awareness, and help some people to take their first steps into the world of digital.

All our activity will link to online resources that will help our audiences play, learn and share, with a digital hub bringing all of this activity together. There will be off-air activity too, particularly focused on children and young people. We want to help people to find the fantastic resources which already exist, including learning opportunities across the UK and online. And in some cases, the very best of what they create will find its way back on to the 主播大秀.

There鈥檚 much, much more to come in the months ahead 鈥� including what we hope will be some life changing opportunities for school leavers so what we鈥檙e announcing today is just the start. With our partners we want to have a lasting impact and ensure we work with them to make a difference.

I hope this gives a flavour of how important this project is to us at the 主播大秀 and explains how we, and the industry, believe we can inspire people. I was asked to lead this project and pull it together so we, the 主播大秀, can bring all of what we have to help highlight what is the future, to and inspire all our audiences to create the future.

Please do let us know what you think. We will update you as we build up to 2015 when we will have much more to share.

Lucy Hooberman, Professor, Digital Media and Innovation at the University of Warwick, has been documenting the history of the 主播大秀's online presence through a series of oral history interviews. Here Professor Hooberman explores just what being on the internet has meant for the 主播大秀.

This week the 主播大秀 is marking the 20th anniversary of its publicly facing beginnings on the World Wide Web.听From the launch of the in April 1994 and the appearances of the first publicly available websites this last 20 years has seen the 主播大秀 move from an age of scarcity - two channels only, to an age of abundance.听Whilst the main push of the 主播大秀鈥檚 technological challenge in the early years of this period was for digital television this post 听is all about what was achieved 鈥渙nline鈥�.

But it鈥檚 hard enough remembering what the UK was like in let alone the world we lived in (Rwanda, Kurt Cobain). Try asking people what they did at work 20 years ago!

I鈥檓 lucky enough to be working with the 主播大秀 on bringing its ,听started by , into this era recording interviews with former and current 主播大秀 staff to chart this journey.听

Recent though it feels it鈥檚 not that easy to reconstruct.听It鈥檚 been eye-opening how many assumptions of mine have been challenged.听 First the assumption that in this digital age everything has been kept or is available for the public or for researchers of the future听has been well and truly squashed.

Even paperwork I thought the 鈥榓rchive鈥� must have kept may or may not be there.听I joined the 主播大秀 in 1993 and when I joined it was an organisation that thrived on memos.听I鈥檇 never seen so much paperwork coming down from on high, 'cascading' commandments, directives leading to much filing and the assumption created in me that such an organised system of internal communications would have its mirror in complete and organised archiving. When I started this project it took a long time to find out that much or most of this period is not yet fully archived and whilst everyone was very helpful the only files I could see were about the听 at the beginning of this period.

At least that was a very good start.听When it came to looking for some of the early websites too that was a challenge, whilst some sites and designs have been archived and kept findable.听.

The third area of challenge is, of course, memory. I鈥檝e now had a taste of my own medicine as I鈥檓 being interviewed about a couple of films I produced 听in the mid 1980s which seem to have found some extremely late fanbase nearly 30 years on having been widely ignored at the time.听My own archiving as an early Independent Producer sorely tested by moving job, moving house, pre-web days.

I鈥檓 hoping other material may be stored away in personal archives, hard drives, paper prototypes kept lovingly at home like the dusty photo albums of yesteryear. Anybody?听And if you do have it where should it be kept?

The world of post-tape archive is complex not only for digitisation but choosing. What do you keep personally? Where do you keep it and how do you keep your memory as an organisation alive?

I started to think about this when I moved from television to "new media" in 2000. I came from participatory and access television and missed the contact with audiences of the television of the 1990s. The www brought it all back and I started to . Bloggers - first military bloggers and then 听Not forgetting the 主播大秀鈥檚 own and found again what I had missed in television since the early 1980s - discussion about the media and how our world was changing by connecting.听I loved the phrase 鈥渨riting ourselves into existence鈥� and it gave me the push I needed to start working out why the 主播大秀 was not blogging. It took me a few years to get the 主播大秀鈥檚 Journalism board to agree with a little help from a few friends. But that鈥檚 another story for another day...

Lucy Hooberman is Professor, Digital Media & Innovation, WMG University of Warwick.