Winning events and audiences

There's a little spring in the step of our Salford-based Sports department. This summer they are in the thick of one of the most remarkable periods for British sport in living memory.

Fresh in our minds but almost a fortnight ago, it was Andy Murray winning Wimbledon – the first British man to win the Championship in shorts, 77 years after Fred Perry. Not only did this dramatic match peak at over 17 million viewers, but over one million people also watched via tablet. And six million used our website.

Last weekend, a remarkably tense Ashes Test win was captured brilliantly by our Test Match Special radio team.

Today, as our teams travel north to Scotland to cover the 2013 Open Golf at Muirfield, we announce the return of the FA Cup to BBC television from next autumn for four years. Sharing this much-loved competition with BT Sport - the latest player in the field - we aim to make this David and Goliath football tournament as big and celebratory as possible. And we will continue to marry our expertise of great sports coverage with technology by offering live streaming online, mobile and tablet.

But it's not just sport. Last month, The Rolling Stones at Glastonbury pulled in the highest ever audience for the festival itself on BBC Two plus over 700,000 live and catch up radio and TV requests. The broadcasting landscape is changing fast and we are working hard to keep up with it - with a great deal of the digital pioneering and connectivity coming through our state of the art Northern base.

However, bringing the audience together and closer to the BBC on every platform isn’t exclusive to major sporting or live music events. Every day the BBC comes into face-to-face contact with licence fee payers across the UK.

Take BBC Audience Tours for example. Here in Salford they have proved immensely popular - 22,000 people have already taken part and they’re pretty much booked up until the end of the year. But visit the website to check availability.

The piazza also provides us the chance to host events on our doorstep. To date over 60,000 people have taken part in everything from open days to larger scale events. Most recently we helped host a day of activity to support the UEFA Women’s Euros and later this summer some of BBC Children’s brands will keep our younger audience entertained in Salford.

But our determination to get closer to the audience continues to take us on the road. From Leeds to Bradford, audiences have joined us to participate in everything from a Gothic wedding and the mystery of the Easter Passion to a celebration of Indian cinema. That audience involvement has been an integral part of the live broadcast experience pioneered by BBC North.

BBC Learning’s recent roadshows in Falkirk, Bangor and Middlesbrough attracted over 44,000 people and I am sure that thousands of people turn up for CBBC Live in Leeds. Over three days, Blue Peter, Newsround and CBBC’s presenters will host a series of shows, exclusive previews screening and hands-on activities - their first ever foray as a whole channel outside the studios.

At the more intimate end of the scale, BBC North also supported photographer Rankin’s latest exhibition at Liverpool’s Walker Gallery – Alive: In The Face Of Death. The subject of a Culture Show special last weekend it gave the public the chance to have a more meaningful relationship with the programmes that we make here.

In the increasingly fragmented digital world enabling this shared experience of live events and creating a tangible connection with some of our best-loved brands can be unique to the BBC’s mission as a public broadcaster. It deepens licence payers' experience with the BBC itself.

And for BBC North, where one of our key objectives is to get as close to audiences as possible across this diverse region, it is fundamental.

Peter Salmon is Director, BBC North.