Roger Mosey said: "I keep seeing references in the British papers to the number of people the BBC has sent to Beijing.

 

"As a piece of context, we flew 437 people from London - while our American colleagues NBC have 2,900 here.

 

"Essentially we had a choice between stationing the bulk of our production in London or in Beijing, and I have no doubt whatsoever that the right decision was to base ourselves here in Beijing.

 

"Our presenters, reporters and commentators should be on the ground, and there are massive benefits for our production area to be here with them - especially given that a lot of the action is happening overnight UK-time.

 

"It's actually a fundamental tenet of the BBC that we should be as close as possible to the action in sport - just as the best reporting in news is when we're at the centre of events."

 

Mosey claimed that early viewing figures, including five million for the opening ceremony last Friday, and a growing interest in the Olympics in Britain because of London 2012 meant he was expecting record figures.

 

He said: "I'll make a prediction that the total number of individuals in the UK who watch these Games will be at least 30 million over the fortnight or so of the Games.

 

"The many millions who tuned in for the opening ceremony are a good omen for that; and the encouraging news continued with the audience figures for the first full day of action.

 

"On Saturday there was a hearting average audience of 3.4m from 11 in the morning right through to 4.30 in the afternoon - on what was a relatively quiet day for sport.

 

"This peaked at four million for the men's gymnastics qualifying at 3.45pm.

 

"But the best is yet to come, and we're confident that our audiences on TV, radio and online want these Games to be covered in depth and at length."

 

Experts are predicting that these Games will break all records for the amount of people who will watch them across the world.

 

It is estimated that about 842 million of China's 1.3 billion population watched the opening ceremony.

 

The biggest audience outside China was in Japan where an estimated 50 million tuned into watch the event.

 

These numbers look set to put Beijing's viewer figures way ahead of the Athens Games in 2004 which attracted 3.9 billion viewers in total and Sydney in 2000 with 3.6 billion.

 

NBC controversially held off showing the opening ceremony in the United States for 12 hours to reach a primetime audience.

 

The trick paid off as it lured 34.2 million viewers.

 

Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Universal Sports & Olympics, said: "The Olympic Opening Ceremony captivated the American public in unprecedented numbers for a non-US Olympics.

 

"It was a magical and memorable spectacle and a great way to start the Beijing Olympics."

 

The Beijing ceremony was watched in whole or part by 7.8 million Australians, according to the Seven Network.

 

Entertainment industry magazine The Hollywood Reporters said in France, nearly one in two viewers, or 4.4 million, watched the event while in Italy, RAI drew a 49 percent share of the market, reaching 5.5 million viewers.

 

In Germany, public broadcaster ARD estimated 7.72 million people watched the opening ceremony live, a 52 percent market share.

 

Nick Waters, chief executive for London-base media agency MindShare Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: "The Olympics is one of the pivotal events for television audiences and the opening ceremony is one of the truly global spectacles.

 

"Although the sheer population numbers in the Asia Pacific region is expected to boost figures, we still predict a strong interest in the event across all European territories, including the UK."