Philip Bernie
Head of Television, BBC Sport
Leading the team covering the biggest sporting events in the world – and how to cope when the pandemic shuts them down.
Philip Bernie is head of television at BBC Sport. Joining the Beeb straight from university, he worked his way up in TV and radio, ultimately taking the editor’s chair at ‘Grandstand’ and ‘Match of the Day’. His career has seen him lead the team behind many of the biggest events in sport, the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games and two World Cups, and win a Royal Television Society award for editing ‘BBC Sports Personality of the Year’. In this in-depth interview, he talks about the challenge of keeping the nation engaged when every single sporting event has been cancelled and presenters are locked down, shares his passion for keeping these “national psyche” events free for as many viewers as possible, and discusses how he made ‘Nessun Dorma’ a popular classic when covering Italia ’90.