As a once-in-a-lifetime broadcasting moment draws to a close, I want to pay tribute to every single person in the BBC who has helped to bring London 2012 to our audiences.

I am very proud of all our staff, from our on-air presenters, reporters and commentators, to all those who have worked tirelessly behind the camera and the mic. It's needed total commitment and great stamina through very long hours, but everywhere I've been over the past fortnight I've seen amazing team-work, passion and utter professionalism. The result has been the best coverage of any event by a broadcaster that I have ever had the privilege to witness.

For most people in this country, their experience of the Games has been through the BBC. Over 50 million viewers have watched our programming. The astonishing opening ceremony (which included several films made by the BBC including that unforgettable 'Good evening, Mr Bond' moment) drew a peak audience of 26.9m (27.1m including red button) and still had over 20m people watching after midnight. That all makes it one of the most watched programmes in the history of BBC Television. But that was only the start. Over the days since then, there have so many individual moments of triumph and drama - some playing to tens of millions of people, some to a few hundred thousand on one of our special Olympic channels, though none the worse for that. And all of them on the BBC.

Work began many years ago with a decision not only that we would commit to broadcast every moment of the games and carry every sport live, but that we would also attempt to reflect all aspects of the games' impact on the UK. In order to deliver this undertaking the BBC 2012 team, led by Roger Mosey, began the job of coordinating with teams across the BBC to ensure we had the resources and the programming to cover the biggest broadcasting event in our 90 year history.

In the years and months leading up to the games we told the journalistic stories behind the huge preparations, good and bad, in our news, current affairs and factual programming. Once the Olympic flame arrived in the United Kingdom on 18th May, BBC teams from across the country made sure every step of its journey was covered. As well as rolling online coverage, our local and regional news teams did a fantastic job of reporting the experience of the torchbearers and the huge crowds that turned out to greet them. This set the scene for the start of the games themselves.

As the sport got under way, an enormous effort swung into place to make sure we offered the most complete coverage of an Olympic games ever. Alongside programming on our main channels, we carried 24 HD streams from around the different venues so fans of every sport, from archery to wrestling, could follow the games live. Dave Gordon, who is working on his tenth summer Olympics for the BBC, has overseen a Herculean effort by Barbara Slater's BBC Sport teams in London and Salford, and at Eton Dorney, Weymouth and all the other locations around the UK, and I'd like to say thank you to all of them.

It's fair to say the coverage has been generally very positively received by the critics. But more importantly than that, it has set a new benchmark for audiences about how we cover big events in the future. In particular, this was the first truly digital Olympics and it gave them more choice and more control than they have ever experienced before.

Our Future Media teams designed and created ground breaking online services. So far we've had over 50 million requests for the BBC Sport's live video interactive streams, there have been 1.9m downloads of the BBC Olympics App, and perhaps most impressively the first week of the games was the most popular ever for BBC Sport Online with a total of 34.7m browsers.

Meanwhile, teams from radio and television have supported the sports coverage, with factual, drama and music programming providing a flavour of the games impact on the whole country.

None of this could have happened without a great deal of work behind the scenes to make sure everything ran smoothly and get the extra channels (both television and radio) on air without a hitch - although sometimes it's taken nerves of steel! Everyone who has worked in the BBC's Operations Group, which ensures the technology, distribution of content, and support services for all our programmes, has played a vital role.

While today sees the end of our Olympic coverage, the Paralympics will be beginning on August 29th and Radio 5 Live will be bringing audiences full coverage of the games, building on their terrific work at the Olympics, that has delivered the station's best ever audience appreciation figures. Our News and Global News teams will continue to bring the stories of the games to our national and international audiences, with the same authority, objectivity and an entirely justified touch of pride that they have shown throughout the Olympics.

So I'd like to conclude by saying thank you to all of you for your hard work, but also to our audiences for being there and sharing this unique experience with us. The London games are ending but the story of the BBC and the Olympics goes on. We've secured the rights to cover the winter and summer games to 2020. That means that we'll be in Rio in four years time and our ambition there will be the same as it's been in London. To use our creativity and experience, the latest technology and the oldest story-telling skills to once again offer our audiences the very best seats in the house. Thank you.

Mark Thompson is Director General of the BBC

UPDATE (Monday 13 August 2012): Today, the BBC released up-to-date information on TV and online statistics. Further information and links available here.

From Premier League highlights on television to Wimbledon to the Six Nations to the FIFA World Cup 2014 to Formula One to the Olympics - and that's by no means a complete list - we now have rights arrangements which stretch out for many years and which guarantee that sport will continue to be a central part of the diet of licence-payers across BBC Television, Radio and Online.

So much nonsense has been written about the modern BBC and sport that it's worth spending a moment setting the record straight.

First, we know that the public care passionately about sport on the BBC. Given the option, they overwhelmingly choose to watch sport on our services rather than on those of our rivals: the recent final of Euro 2012 in which the coverage on BBC1 gained six times more viewers than that on ITV1 is a good case in point. BBC Television currently shows just 2% of the hours of TV sport broadcast in the UK but that 2% represents over 40% of the hours actually consumed by the public. That's far more than any other broadcaster, including BSkyB. And when we have a sporting moment of national importance - think of England v Italy in the Euros, or Murray v Federer at Wimbledon - they turn to us in their tens of millions.

Second, we take our responsibility to meet that public expectation very seriously. People sometimes argue that sport is so widely available on British television that there is no longer an argument for the BBC using the licence fee to pay for sports rights. I couldn't disagree more. For decades, the public have valued the unique way the BBC covers sport: its technical professionalism, the quality of its commentary and analysis, the absence of interruptions for commercials. In recent years, we've backed up that traditional distinctiveness with a new burst of innovation both in linear coverage and via the BBC Sport website.

Like most other public organisations, we are having to live within a tight budget but those who claimed that Delivering Quality First meant that the BBC was turning its back on sport were very wide of the mark. Like virtually every other kind of output, sport has had to face some unpalatable choices. We have relinquished our remaining television commitments to horse-racing and successfully renegotiated our Formula One rights to create a sharing arrangement with Sky; although it is clearly not as attractive as retaining exclusive rights, this latter deal has kept half the races live on the BBC, broadly maintained the reach of our Formula One coverage and will save us more than £150 million over the lifetime of the contract - a significant contribution to our savings targets.

Of course, the BBC has always played a major role in broadcasting sport on the radio, and will continue to do so through long term deals covering all the major sports, including the iconic Test Match Special and the Ryder Cup.

Wherever possible, we've tried to keep the costs of renewal down: compare the recent near-flat renewal of Premier League highlights (now including BBC iPlayer rights) with the reported 70% increase in the live rights. But we always intended to protect the core of our rights portfolio and we set aside enough money to do so. To give you an idea of scale, our annual financial commitment to sport will remain broadly in line with our annual budget for domestic network news and current affairs.

What's gratifying about today's announcement is that it sees that strategy coming to fruition. Many people have been instrumental in securing our long-term position in sport, but I do want to pay special tribute to our Director of Sport, Barbara Slater, and our brilliant negotiator, Dominic Coles and his team.

Over the next few days, BBC Sport will begin coverage of the single most important sporting event in the history of the BBC. I know you'd like to join me in wishing the team every success in bringing the 2012 London Games alive for our audience. The great thing is that they - and all their colleagues in our brand new sports centre in BBC North - will head into the 2012 Games knowing that, notwithstanding the doom-mongers, that sport is here to stay on the BBC not for a year or two but for the long term.

Martin Ivens ("The BBC has a dog in this Murdoch fight" Comment, last week) is mistaken in two respects about the BBC and News Corporation's bid to buy the whole of BSkyB.

The first is that the BBC was or is opposed to the bid itself. We weren't and aren't. Our point was only ever that the bid should be referred by ministers to the relevant competition authorities.

The second error is in relation to the implication that any corporate position the BBC took on the bid was likely to impair our ability to cover the story with strict impartiality.

When it became clear in 2010 that the BBC would take a corporate view about the referral of News Corporation bid, I recused myself from my duties as editor-in-chief as regards both the bid and the wider phone-hacking story and handed responsibility for both to senior colleagues within our news division. That separation remains in place.

Mark Thompson

Director-General BBC

We're hardly alone, of course. Look at any other broadcaster, at any advertising hoarding or some newspapers and you're likely to be confronted by an obsession with young women's faces and bodies and an ageism far more pronounced and disturbing than anything you'll ever see or hear on the BBC. You'll find plenty of photographs of older men - politicians, film stars, celebrities of one stripe or another - some handsome, some frankly a little gnarly. But you'll discover that older women are chiefly notable for their absence. ‬

By contrast, if you've been watching BBC drama and comedy in recent weeks, you would have caught Gillian Anderson, not just stealing the show in Great Expectations but rubbing shoulders in prime time with Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley, Sue Perkins, Penelope Keith as well as many of the best-known characters in EastEnders and our other popular serials. If factual programmes are your thing, you'll have found yourself bumping into the brilliant Mary Beard, not to mention Deborah Meaden, Anne Robinson, Alex Polizzi, Mary Berry and many, many more. Perhaps you think it's the BBC's news and current affairs output where the real dearth lies? Only if you overlook Kirsty Wark, Martha Kearney, Sarah Montague, Fiona Bruce, to name but a few.‬

A thoughtful critic of the BBC might accept that list. They might even accept that the BBC does a better job in this regard than other British broadcasters. But they might also go on to make two searching points. First, that there is an underlying problem, that - whatever the individual success stories - there are manifestly too few older women broadcasting on the BBC, especially in iconic roles and on iconic topical programmes. Second that, as the national broadcaster and one which is paid for by the public, the BBC is in a different class from everyone else, and that the public have every right to expect it to deliver to a higher standard of fairness and open mindedness in its treatment both of its broadcasters and its audiences. If the BBC isn't prepared to take this issue more seriously, what hope is there that others will start to do so?‬

I accept both of these arguments in full.‬

There has been a revolution at the BBC in recent years in the role women play in leadership positions. Of the twelve members of our Executive Board, five are female, all of them (and no, there isn't a completely satisfactory way of saying this) 'older' women. Critical BBC services - including both Radio 4 and BBC Two - are in the hands of exceptional women controllers. BBC News, once an almost entirely male management domain, is largely led by women.‬

But we've yet to see the same rate or scale of change on the air. In terms of interviewees on current affairs programmes like Question Time or Newsnight, it is a simple fact of life that many aspects of British national life are dominated by men. I believe these programmes do their best to find opportunities for women to appear, but David Dimbleby is right when he says that it would be wrong for the BBC to distort the reality of the distribution of power and influence in this country in the name of artificial gender balance. ‬

What is true, however, is that we have too few women in key news and current affairs presenting roles, especially when it comes to the big political interviews. Stephanie Flanders is doing an outstanding job for us as BBC Economics Editor but, again, too few of the most senior on-air specialist journalists at the BBC are women. That's why we're delighted to have recently appointed Allegra Stratton as Newsnight's Political Editor, though of course we gave her the job not because of her gender but simply because she was the best candidate‬.

I don't believe for a moment that the BBC is riven by sexism or ageism. As Ann Widdecombe commented last week, it's quite wrong to conclude that any replacement of an older woman by a younger one (or by a man) is automatically proof of prejudice; all sorts of factors come into place in creative and casting decisions. The public would be alarmed if the BBC did anything other than choosing presenters strictly on merit and regardless of sex or age.‬

Nonetheless, the Miriam O'Reilly case - she won an employment tribunal after being dropped from her presenting role on Countryfile - was an important wake-up for the whole BBC, one which I hope will mark a turning-point on our handling of this issue. Miriam has behaved with remarkable dignity and forbearance throughout, but she was not treated as she should have been by the BBC. We have a duty to ensure that no one has to go through a similar experience in the future. With others, Miriam has now launched a new charity to draw attention to and campaign about the role of women in the media. We will support her work in any way we can.‬

So what is to be done? First, we have to understand the extent and character of the problem. This is why, as Chairman of the industry body that looks at fairness and representation of every kind, I commissioned the report "Serving All Ages" which looked at British TV as a whole. Interestingly, it showed that issues of age were not front of mind for most members of the audience (quality of output, where the BBC scores very highly, was their top concern), and indeed that, of all age groups, it was the young rather than the old who tend to feel most unfairly and negatively portrayed by the broadcasters. But a significant minority of respondents - and not just older women themselves - did tell us that they felt that older women were 'invisible' on the airwaves. That perception, and the reality behind it, is what we have to change.‬

We must develop and cherish the many outstanding women broadcasters we already have and make sure they know that, like any employees and freelancers, age will not be a bar to their future employment by the BBC. Where we can, we should bring great female talent back to the BBC, as we're doing so successfully at the moment in Rip Off Britain 2012 with Angela Rippon, Julia Somerville and Gloria Hunniford. I am also pleased to see that Danny Cohen has announced plans today to bring Anneka Rice back to BBC One prime time. We should make sure every BBC editor and producer understands their role in helping us address this challenge.‬

This is an anomaly which has its roots deep in our national life and which cannot be solved overnight. Ann Widdecombe - who clearly enjoyed herself immensely on Strictly Come Dancing last autumn - is surely right when she warns against a knee-jerk or politically correct response to the issue. We shouldn't turf out other much loved and respected presenters and reporters in an attempt to achieve an instant fix, and no one (not least the older women in our audience) would thank us for doing so. ‬

We need to identify the talent and the opportunities over time. But we are determined to act and already, on the BBC News Channel, on BBC1 and on other services, we're beginning to see a difference. Progress over time by the BBC is important in itself and will, I believe, be welcomed by all our audiences, young as well as old. But I hope that it will also encourage other broadcasters and media players to follow suit.‬

Tameka Epsom, from EastEnders and Cherylee Houston from Coronation Street

Last night was a fantastic evening celebrating the best in creativity and diversity at the third annual Creative Diversity Network (CDN) Awards, which took place at MediaCityUK studios in Salford.

As current Chair of the CDN, I was very proud to bring the celebration to Salford, so partners, stakeholders, programme makers and talent could see the impressive site that stands for exactly what the CDN Awards are all about: embracing, celebrating and reflecting diversity - geographic as well as demographic.

Winners of the 2011 CDN Awards

I want to congratulate again all involved in last night's ceremony which showcased some of the very best in diverse and creative programmes and people. Last night many people came together to pay tribute to the enormous range of artistic and creative talent, innovation, commitment and sheer hard work that has taken place over the last year.

The challenges the BBC is meeting - representation, portrayal, a more diverse workforce - are the same for all members of the CDN, and these winners show how successful we can be as an industry when we embrace diversity. As Chair of the CDN, it was a pleasure to see the fruits of so much hard work.

And the winners are...

Radio Times Drama Award:
Luther (BBC One)

Company of the Year Award:
Endemol

Best Comedy & Entertainment Programme:
Phone Shop (Talkback Thames for Channel 4)

Diversity Innovation Award:
Battlefront (Raw Television for Channel 4)

Best Nations and Regions Portrayal:
Fish Town (Mentorn Media for Sky Atlantic HD)

CDN News Award:
The BBC Journalism Trainee Scheme

Best Breakthrough Talent:
Levi David Addai

Community Initiative
Company Pictures, Skins

Best Factual Programme:
Undercover Care: The Abuse Exposed (Panorama, BBC)

The CDN Fellowship:
Presented to Clive Jones, with a speech by Samir Shah and presentation by Chair of the CDN, Mark Thompson

Mark Thompson is the Director General of the BBC, and current Chair of the CDN

We launched the campaign on Breakfast News and at an event at MediaCity UK in Salford in which presenter Pam Rhodes joined 250 volunteers in encouraging internet first-timers. We have been covering the story across the BBC - particularly on local radio. You can watch a video of the launch event below.

The purpose of the campaign is to encourage all of us who use the internet regularly to help one of the 8.7 million people in the UK who have still never used it. On Sunday the clocks went back and the campaign calls on us all to give that 'extra' hour to show someone the benefits of the internet.

The BBC has a really important role to play in this. We have fantastic content on our own website which we'd like everyone to enjoy. Computing has the power to help people educate, inform and entertain themselves and this technology should be accessible to everyone. The creativity of our programme makers and the unique trust the public place in us means that we at the BBC have a special responsibility to help. Giving people the tools, skills and above all the inspiration to enter this new world is an incredibly important goal for the country which the BBC should get fully behind.

Jacinta is one of those people who just needed a helping hand to get started. She picked it all up very quickly and at the end of the hour we'd explored shopping online, flights to India and Wikipedia. For her, it was just a taster but I could see there'd be no stopping her once she got going.

It was incredibly helpful for me too. It's really important that all of us understand better what this new digital world looks like for those who have never accessed it. We need to offer all of them our support and make sure their transition is as easy and enjoyable as possible.

This is not something new to the BBC. Give an Hour is part of the BBC's ongoing commitment to Media Literacy. This latest initiative builds on the huge success of BBC Learning's First Click campaign which helped reduce the numbers of off-liners by around half a million.

I'd encourage everyone to join in. You can find a series of inspiring videos and guides on how to give your hour on our own website bbc.co.uk/giveanhour. And you can also find more practical help and even advice on finding a training centre near you at our partner website www.go-on.co.uk.

• Visit the BBC Give an Hour campaign website and learn about the experiences of other digital champions and download a handbook to help you inspire others.
• You can find more online advice, face to face courses or volunteer for projects in your local area via the Go On Give An Hour website.

Today sees the launch of our Annual Report, heralding the end of an exceptional year for the BBC - a year marked by outstanding creativity, and major change within the organisation.

Highlights for me include the BBC Three documentary series Our War which I sat and watched with my own teenage children. It was exhilarating, disturbing, heartbreaking. And utterly gripping. It characterised much of the best of what the BBC achieved last year.

Other high points include Brian Cox's Wonders of the Solar System, and A History of the World in 100 Objects which was a phenomenon on BBC Radio 4, but with expressions and extensions across BBC services. The BBC Proms had one of its most ambitious and exciting season for many years while drama on television enjoyed creative success across a broad front: from Stephen Moffat's Sherlock to the unforgettable Five Daughters. It was also an extraordinary year for international news with the Japanese tsunami, events in the Middle East, and the death of Osama Bin Laden.

Audience performance and approval has been strong, with further growth for many digital services, but of course not everything has gone right. In addition to the occasional creative misfires, the Miriam O'Reilly case was a reminder to the whole of the BBC of our duty to reflect, on air and in all our employment practices every part of the society we serve.

There were big events behind the scenes over 2010/11 as well, above all a licence fee settlement completed in record time last autumn. The settlement gives the BBC certainty over its funding for many years and will help us plan for the future, but the settlement means we need to find savings and make difficult choices. We've already taken significant steps to prioritise spend on content and services, reducing senior management pay and numbers and top talent fees, and making many other savings. This year we will take that agenda to the next stage as part of a comprehensive plan for the BBC between now and the end of our Royal Charter in 2016.

We are hard at work on this plan right now. Inevitably, there are many difficult questions and trade-offs to work through. We know, however, that both our governing body, the BBC Trust, and the British public will want to ensure that the commitment to quality and originality which marked the best of 2010/11 will guide all our decisions about the future. Now more than ever, we are determined to put quality first.

Mark Thompson is Director General of the BBC

• Read the Annual Report and Accounts online and download individual sections in PDF format.
• The picture shows Adele during her Radio 1 Live Lounge appearance in January.

Earlier today I gave a speech at the National Digital Conference to an audience of around one thousand 'digital champions'. It's been an inspiring day to celebrate the launch of a network of 'digital champions' - anyone encouraging family and friends to use the internet. I announced the launch of the next phase of the BBC's own First Click campaign to build on the successes of the last, and talked about future collaborations to broaden digital inclusion. My speech began:

I'm delighted to be joining Martha, Paula and all of you today to celebrate the launch of the digital champions' network and the next phase of the BBC's First Click campaign. At the BBC, we began trying to introduce the British public to the potential of digital technology back in the early 80s with the BBC Micro...

Read the rest of the speech on the BBC Press Office web site.

Mark Thompson is Director General of the BBC

• The National Digital Conference is taking place at Old Billingsgate Market, London this afternoon and tomorrow. Watch live online, from 0900 Thursday, on the ND11 web site. The hashtag is #ND11.
• Read the First Click Friends press release on the BBC Press Office web site.
• Follow @ND11 on Twitter.
• Help someone get online on on the First Click Friends web site.
• There's an post about First Click Friends on the BBC Webwise blog.

Broadcasters, search companies, mobile phone companies, ISPs– all felt as if they were about to meet in a new converging middle.

Broadcasters were to be assaulted from all angles – the internet, tech start-ups; digital television and citizen journalists.

So far at least things haven’t turned out that way. Time shifting, user generated content and convergence remain fundamental trends, but none have developed along the lines the industry predicted.

Today asynchronous viewing accounts for as little as 10% of total TV viewing. It might grow to little more than 15% by 2016. These are highly significant shifts – but not the bloody revolution and the death of spot advertising many predicted. 

The obstinate fact almost no one foresaw is that television consumption as a whole has grown in this country and, at least for the present, continues to grow.

So was talk of a seismic shift wrong?  Well, gradualist change doesn’t feel quite right either. 

Another way in which our 2005 prediction fell short is in what it left out.  Smart phones and the world of the app store. The power of social media.  

In 2005 we wanted to launch a seven-day BBC catch-up service available on as many devices as possible.  But we didn’t know what those devices would be, and certainly not just how many people would watch the iPlayer not just in the home, but in bed, on a mobile smart phone or tablet. 

The dictum – that we tend to overestimate change over the next couple of years and underestimate it over the next ten – feels like good advice. Look at the behaviour of younger viewers – there’s reason to believe that we may see a period of evolution followed by revolution.

Different kinds of TV are advancing at different speeds. News and information is our advance party, because we expect it to be available in real time wherever, whenever and on whatever device is most convenient. 

Many new sources and modes of absorbing news are weakening the business models for newsgathering and the scheduling of traditional news bulletins just as they are with newspapers. It’s possible to counter these trends and it helps if, like the BBC, you already have a tradition of offering news across multiple platforms – but you have to work much harder.

In the UK we have maintained our reach and internationally have extended it because we generally do not rely on single platforms. Broadcasters can now only hope to have a significant impact with news if they are offering it on television, the web, radio and mobile. This is why in recent years we have launched BBC Arabic and Persian TV channels in addition to our radio and web services.  It is also why the BBC will never retreat from delivering news online.

But in entertainment, the principle reason why people turn to TV, it’s a very different story. Predictions of passive consumption giving way to active participation now look not just premature but wrong.  Instead, the main impact of the new technologies has been to extend choice. 

There continues to be rapid innovation in the passive TV experience. Far from atomising into a series of individuals watching different things in different rooms, family viewing is alive and well and event television, from X Factor to Doctor Who is as big or bigger as ever.

The evidence of the past five years is that television as a social glue remains very sticky indeed, particularly when it comes to big entertainment formats or national events.

But when time-shifting is easy and intuitive and available on the device you happen to have in front of you right now, people use it. 

In January, the BBC iPlayer hit a new all-time peak of 162 million programme requests, an average of more than six per household. The greatest growth is now on iPads, iPhones, other smart phones and games consoles.

BBC iPlayer worked from day one it was so behaviourally straightforward – no log in, no client to download, you just clicked on a picture of a TV programme and it played.

As an industry we have given too little attention to TV on mobile devices. I believe there’s a strong case for the UK’s broadcasters, mobile phone operators, Ofcom and Government to come together to develop a roadmap for mobile TV in this country. 

The remarkable persistence of linear TV consumption should not make us complacent.  We don’t yet know whether even younger people growing up in a completely digital world will follow the same pattern. Or, whether there will be a permanent shift downwards in consumption.

The BBC’s response to the first digital wave was to broaden the choice it offered on TV and radio by developing wider channel portfolios while also establishing a strong presence – centred on its long range historic strength in news – on the web and other digital devices. As a result, we have maintained our reach across audiences. Average consumption of the BBC is actually growing. Quality and approval measures have also increased over the past five years.

The challenge for us now is to concentrate on the quality, value and memorability of our content, not just in television but across our services. 

Science on BBC One with Bang Goes The Theory, last week’s Newsnight Special on Libya, the Proms which last year reached eighteen million people in the UK on BBC Television over the season. That’s our direction of travel.

For eighty years, we’ve been heavily involved in developing platforms and broadcast technologies.  We still need to do that – not least because we are the only big player prepared to share our innovations and technology with the industry at large.  But we never forget that platforms and devices are a means to an end – and the end is putting outstanding, worthwhile content in front of the public.

This is a summary of the speech I gave this morning at the FT Digital Media and Broadcasting Conference. Read the full transcript here. 

Mark Thompson is Director-General of the BBC

We will provide regular updates on-air and at www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice of programmes that are affected.

I would like to explain how we reached this position. The strike is about changes to our pension scheme, changes which have been accepted by the majority of unions. These changes were necessary to deal with a pension deficit which, like many other schemes, is due to the performance of financial markets and the fact that people are living longer.

We first put forward initial proposals to change the BBC Pension Scheme in June. (You can read more on the reasons why changes are needed in a blog by Zarin Patel, Chief Financial Officer). Since then, we have consulted and listened to staff, and brought in changes to our proposals as a result.

We have made clear this is our final offer and that we can make no more changes without imposing an unacceptable burden on Licence Fee payers.

Four out of the five unions have accepted our revised offer, and this is also reflected in feedback from staff. The NUJ alone, which represents 17% of staff, have voted to reject the offer and go on strike. We do not know how many NUJ members voted to reject the agreement in the consultative ballot but it was almost certainly a minority of the total NUJ membership - and certainly a very small percentage of the BBC workforce as a whole.

It has never been more important to ensure the BBC is spending every penny of Licence Fee payers money wisely and delivering the quality programmes and services audiences want. We believe the current pension proposals are realistic and affordable, and will provide fair pension provision for BBC staff for the future.

This has been a difficult period for staff. However, the people who lose out most in any strike action are the very people we are here to serve - our audiences. Again, I apologise for the disruption. We will do everything in our power to bring you as much as possible of our usual programming and services.

Mark Thompson is BBC Director-General

The BBC Press Office website will be publishing regular service announcements and statements about the NUJ industrial action.

You can also follow the @bbcpress and @AboutTheBBC Twitter feeds for updates.

Like the political parties, our preparation and planning will have been in development for months before the Prime Minister finally drives to the Palace and asks the Queen to dissolve Parliament.

And, more than any election before it, this will be a television and digital election - the historic prime ministerial TV debates being the biggest and most obvious example.

The public looks to the BBC's expertise to help them navigate and make clear some of the political complexities they face. It is one of the BBC's key responsibilities and is arguably the most important and serious duty the BBC has. The BBC is the crucible where the big debates about the future of the country inevitably take place and where many opinions will be shaped. Above all, the BBC will aim to be the standard-bearer for fair, accurate and impartial journalism across the UK. We will provide election coverage that is both independent and unique offering unprecedented breadth, depth and insight.

This could be one of the closest and therefore most ferociously fought elections in living memory. With the stakes so high for the political parties, it would not be surprising if they were in contact about how we were covering what they do and say. Whilst we will always take seriously any accusations or questions about our even-handedness and accept any mistakes if we get things wrong, we will show neither fear nor favour in how we report the election.

It is vital that the BBC is able to provide a strong and independent space where the big debates can take place, free from political or commercial influence. In this public space, everyone can have access to the lifeblood of healthy democratic debate - impartial news and information. The strength of our impartial public service broadcasting, combined with a strong newspaper tradition, is what makes us distinct from most democracies around the world.

So how will our coverage be different from previous years?

Firstly, audiences will be able to put the politicians and their policies under the microscope and scrutinise them in more detail than ever before. The Prime Ministerial Debates will enable the public to engage in the campaign in a new way, with the BBC hosting the final debate on the economy. In addition, there will be special programmes on each night of the debates, with focus groups, specialist correspondents and party pundits providing the first full analysis and reaction. And, as in previous years, we will also try to secure on BBC One one-to-one interviews with the leaders of the main political parties.

The Daily Politics will be extended to 60 minutes, Monday to Friday, throughout the campaign. It will host nine 'Cabinet Contender' debates which will provide a unique opportunity for the public to compare and contrast what each party has to offer on the issues that matter most to them. The programmes will be broadcast during the last three weeks of the campaign and will be presented by Andrew Neil and an independent policy expert and BBC specialist correspondent.

In Scotland there will be two election debates in Edinburgh and Glasgow, broadcast on BBC One Scotland, and Newsnight Scotland will be extended for four nights a week for the election coverage and an election night special with Jackie Bird, Glenn Campbell and Brian Taylor. Noel Thompson and Jim Fitzpatrick will lead the coverage in Northern Ireland, reflecting the local and national election picture as results come in. BBC Newsline will have a series of special reports and political debates from around the constituencies, and of course there will also be a Leaders debate. BBC Cymru Wales will host three election debates from around the nation, including a Welsh Leaders debate. On election night, Huw Edwards will lead proceedings on BBC One Wales. A range of Welsh language content will produced for radio, TV and online, including three Welsh language debates. In addition, across England, towards the end of the campaign, there will be 12 regional television debates with politicians, each focusing on issues that matter to the region, in front of a live audience.

Finally, we will offer the most comprehensive coverage in trying to energise and engage different audiences in the democratic process. Audiences tell us they look to the BBC to unpick the complexities of policy and bring clarity to difficult issues. We'll be doing this through the use of our trusted expertise of our specialist editors including Nick Robinson, Stephanie Flanders and Robert Peston.

This means a quality offer not just on our flagship news and current affairs programmes - Today, Newsnight, The World At One, Jeremy Vine and many other key programmes, but to other audiences through Newsround, Radio 1 and Newsbeat. Digital and online will also play a central and enhanced role. A special General Election site on bbc.co.uk will bring the most immediate developments, showcase the best of our content, and provide depth and analysis on the key issues. There is no better example than the General Election, with our online coverage being a cornerstone of what the BBC should be about.

Of course this is not the totality of what we will do. Campaigns, and the coverage of them, can evolve and change based on events. And every campaign always has those unexpected and sometimes defining moments.

Every day the BBC seeks to inform. During a General Election campaign that responsibility increases. Whilst our attention will be on the political parties - reporting their policies, holding them to account and analysing their announcements - our focus will be on serving the British electorate. Our recent Strategy Review was about making the BBC more mission-focused so that we deliver the best service for licence fee payers. Providing the best journalism in the world - through independent, impartial and authoritative content which the electorate can trust - is one of the main reasons why the BBC exists, and it is exactly what we will seek to fulfil in the weeks ahead.

Having set out proposals which included closing some much-loved services, I am not surprised that some of our plans have provoked a strong reaction. From what I've read, I don't see there's much I can add to what I've said previously about specific proposals linked to 6 Music or the Asian Network or what my colleagues Tim Davie and John Tate have posted over the week.

But I would like to reinforce a few points about the overall strategy - as I think it's really important people do not lose sight of the fact that our plans are about safeguarding the future of the whole BBC. Because the BBC's contribution to UK culture and society is bigger than the sum of its parts.

As a public institution we have a very clear public mission which we must fulfil to justify our existence. For us to be confident and ambitious into the digital future, we must be consistent in delivering that mission. And after a very comprehensive piece of work, I am convinced we need to make some changes to how we operate to guarantee consistency in the future. 

Whilst I believe our proposals are right, it is also absolutely right that the people who own and pay for the BBC get their say before final decisions are made. 

Now is your opportunity to get involved. The BBC Trust - our governing body - wants your input so they can take it into account when judging our proposals. We will forward your comments to the Trust, but if you really want to be heard you should also visit their site and complete the consultation. 

As I said in my post on Tuesday:

"My ambition is for us to become more confident and proud of the fact that we exist to be different. Our purpose is not to make money, it is to enrich people's lives by capturing the essence of Britain today and making sure everyone can access excellence in programmes and content whoever they are."

And my ambition is for the whole BBC to be held up as meeting this vision, not just bits of it.  The proposals I set out on Tuesday are just the start of an exciting new chapter for the BBC. 

You may have read plenty of speculation of some of the specific recommendations of this review. This morning I will be giving clarity on the detail, but also putting the review in the proper context. The proper context is not: how big should the BBC be? The right question is: what is the BBC for? Get the answer to that right and everything else - editorial priorities, size and scope, role online - everything else flows from it.

The BBC has one mission: to inform, educate and entertain audiences with programmes and services of high quality, originality and value. That is not up for debate. What today is about is how we are going to deliver that mission.

The external environment has changed beyond recognition over the last two years - explosive growth in digital, big changes in audience behaviour and a commercial sector facing real strain and new pressures. It is exactly because the media is changing so fast that we must articulate our public service mission and our values more clearly and consistently than ever before. We must explore new ways of delivering our mission - and of ensuring that the benefits of digital can be enjoyed by all. There can be no turning back on our digital journey.

We therefore have to change how we deliver and fulfil our core purpose. But these reasons alone do not explain why we will today set-out our new strategy. The BBC needs to acknowledge that we must also change the way we behave and act. As broadcasters and newspapers bump into each other online and on other platforms the strain has increased.

We also have to recognise the profound challenges facing much of commercial media. And that, while some attacks made on the BBC are destructive and baseless, others represent legitimate concern about the boundaries of what we do, and about our future public service and commercial ambitions. We need to listen more closely than we have in the past to these. We have not always been clear enough about our boundaries or recognising where the market should lead. We now need to create more space for others. We can't do everything and, after years of expansion of our home services, we propose some reductions.

Our new strategy addresses all these issues. Firstly and most importantly, it will bring an unprecedented focus on high-quality programmes. Quality is our raison d'être. The BBC exists to deliver to audiences in the UK and around the world, programmes and content of real quality and value - content which audiences would never enjoy if the BBC did not exist.

We will refocus licence fee investment around five clear priorities: the best journalism; inspiring knowledge, music and culture; ambitious UK drama and comedy; outstanding children's content; and events that bring communities and the nation together. We will focus on the areas which most clearly build public value and which are most at risk of being ignored or under-invested in by commercial players.

The BBC will live or die by the quality of its programmes and content. We will retain an unswerving, unwavering, unflagging focus on quality. To ensure we do, we are committing to unprecedented investment in high-quality, original UK content. We will do this in part by reducing the cost of running the BBC and reducing spending on programmes from abroad. Carefully selected acquisitions are valued by audiences but our priority is original, UK content.

We will also deliver a more focused BBC doing fewer things better and leaving space for others by setting clearer boundaries. It will pledge new ways of guaranteeing access to licence fee payers to see and hear our content first and for free. And we will deliver greater value by making the licence fee work harder for the wider economy.

But the strategy review will only be a start. I want things to change further at the BBC. My ambition is for us to become more confident and proud of the fact that we exist to be different. Our purpose is not to make money, it is to enrich people's lives by capturing the essence of Britain today and making sure everyone can access excellence in programmes and content whoever they are.

Some critics will always say this is not enough and will never stop in trying to further erode the BBC - they will be disappointed by what we have announced today. Our loyalty and prime responsibility will always be to our audiences - we know they want a strong BBC, clear about its purpose and delivering services they love, value and can be proud of.

A few months ago, after discussion with the BBC Trust, I announced a substantial re-examination of the BBC's overall strategy. As technology developments gather pace and the economic outlook changes, we need to be sure the BBC is properly focused on our mission to inform, educate and entertain, and is able to deliver to the standards everyone expects. The big question in my mind was: what needs to change to make sure the BBC continues to do the very best for all audiences in what has become known as 'the digital age'.

At a speech to an industry conference in Cambridge, I sought to do two things: firstly, to highlight the importance in this country of 'public space' - those things which are open to all of us to use and take advantage of, including the BBC - and secondly, to acknowledge that, in a world of greater financial pressure, those of us who occupy that public space need to be able to justify our place both by being very clear why we are there and in delivering what we promise. That's what our strategy review is all about.

Yesterday, when I spoke to the VLV I wanted to make clear that - in reviewing our strategy - our focus would be getting the BBC in the best shape possible to deliver what the public really wants from us: quality programming. Even more than at present, our focus first and foremost in the future will be on quality: creative ambition, excellence and original programming across television, radio and online.

Work is progressing so I will be able to unveil early next year what will be changing at the BBC to allow that increased commitment. And as Sir Michael Lyons announced earlier this week, the Trust will consult publicly on those measures. But in the meantime, I want everyone to understand that quality is our priority and that is what is driving our approach.

Yesterday I also spoke about the importance of the BBC's independence from government and highlighted the difficulties faced by other broadcasters around the world who are not fortunate enough to enjoy the structures which secure the BBC's independence. If you have time, do read the speech in full. Also, you might like to look at a feature on Newsnight last night about the future of the BBC. A proud part of the BBC's heritage is that our news programmes do not shy from holding BBC bosses to account. And you can see that principle in action when Gavin Esler interviewed me, along with industry experts, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and his Conservative Shadow.