 |  With our digital channels you'll be able to pick the sport you want to watch at the Winter Olympics |
It's the time of year when media outlets are full of reviews of this and memories of that, and it feels as if we're forced to trudge through 2005 all over again.
Or there's speculation and pundits' predictions about what might turn up in 2006.
So let me try to offer you a festive change by saying what will happen in BBC Sport in the New Year.
2006 will be one of our busiest ever years - and we'll be offering you more sports coverage than at any point in the BBC's history.
It will increasingly be delivered digitally: to interactive television, to digital radio, to your mobile phone and via your broadband service.
The traditional output will still be there on our flagship channels, but more and more of our content will be available at the time you want it. You'll also have a greater right to choose - whether it's picking the sport you want to watch at the Winter Olympics, or opting for commentary on Five Live Sports Extra instead of whichever event is being covered on 909 and 693MW.
Alongside the live events there will be more sports news. Our website is already world-class, has a vast audience - on average over 1.5 million unique users each day - and is the place where people come to debate the hot topics of the day.
Radio Five Live and our TV text services also do a great job in bringing you the latest information around the clock, and we want to strengthen the sports news output on BBC News 24 and our digital video services.
| 2006 World Cup: LIVE on BBC TV, digital, radio & online |
Across the board, sports journalism will be one of our priorities: ensuring that we ask the questions you want answered, and giving you the information you need - fast.
And this should be a great year for sport. It's one of the inevitabilities of working for the BBC that the press sometimes have a pop at us, and one of the oldest clich�s in the book is the claim that the BBC doesn't have much sport these days.
So let's leave aside the website and the network radio services - which between them provided a cricket service for 12 million people during the Ashes summer.
And let's not dwell on our excellent local radio sports teams or our daily sports news on regional television or in the nations of the United Kingdom.
If we concentrate just on national television sport, then in the first six months of next year you will see on the BBC:
The Winter Olympics from Turin The Commonwealth Games from Melbourne The World Cup from Germany Six Nations Rugby Match of the Day, including the FA Cup live The Grand National US Masters Golf Wimbledon And a lot more besides. So never believe the moaning minnies who say the BBC isn't committed to sport: it is, and we want that commitment to grow in the digital age.
Let me end not with a New Year's resolution - because we know what happens to those - but with some promises about your relationship with BBC Sport.
I think it's been true in the past that the BBC hasn't listened as much as it should, and it hasn't been as accountable as it could have been to our audiences. So here are three pledges from me for 2006 and beyond:
We'll conduct research across the UK to help us meet the wishes of our audiences, and we'll let you know how our strategy changes as a result I'll reply to e-mails from you, the audience, about BBC Sport We'll regularly publish a selection of comments and criticisms on our website We won't be able to please everybody, but we'll do our best - and we'll never forget that this is the sport service you pay for, and which should aspire to excellence for all the people of the United Kingdom.
Have a great New Year,
Roger
MMIX
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