The 1908 Olympics took place in White City, just yards from where the BBC‘s director of London 2012 is now sipping a cappuccino, and they started amid hubristic high hopes. But the Games ended in bitter, soggy acrimony following a string of disqualifications, allegations of cheating, diplomatic incidents and lashings of rain.

Given the grandstanding presentation that Roger Mosey last week oversaw as he unveiled the BBC’s Games coverage plans, there appears to be a degree of confidence that history won’t repeat itself. With the arrival of the flame at Land’s End, covered in a primetime One Show special on Friday, an orgy of Olympic programming began.

Like the London 2012 chairman, Lord Coe, Mosey appears convinced the 70-day torch relay around the UK will light a spark of excitement for the Games across a nation that remains split in its attitude towards it.

“It’s an interesting national story but it’s an even bigger local story. I think the level of interest will be very pleasing,” he says. BBC cameras will follow around 80% of the torch relay live (though what they shoot will mostly be broadcast online). Every BBC region will have a special show when the torch reaches its area.

The Olympics will all but take over BBC1 and an extended-hours BBC3 for 17 days this summer, and 24 new dedicated channels besides on cable and satellite. Mosey promises “every event from the first thing in the morning to the last thing at night”, offering 2,500 hours of sports coverage alone – 1,000 more than from Beijing.

The huge choice, including a new digital dashboard that will allow viewers to build their own schedule of live and recorded events, could lead to paralysis or diminish the ability to tell the “story” of the Games. Mosey concedes navigation is “a major challenge” but thinks his team have got the balance right.

“For most people, linear TV and BBC1 will remain the biggest beast in the jungle,” he says. “But while on the opening night everyone will watch the opening ceremony on BBC1, the next morning you might have the rowing on one channel, the men’s road race on another and the prelims in various sports. That’s where you can personalise your Olympics. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and.”

This is far more than a sporting event for the BBC, with everything from a Shakespeare season to a Radio 1 festival plus dramas and documentaries pegged to the Games. It is also the anchor for a so-called “summer like no other” that the BBC hopes will underline its position as the place where the nation comes together for big moments – whether the men’s 100m final, the Diamond Jubilee or England v France in Euro 2012.

It will also be the swansong for Mark Thompson, a director general who has not shown a great affinity for sport but who has fully embraced what coverage of major events represents, a populist expression of Reithian values.

For all the talk about the digital innovations that will accompany London 2012, variously described as “the first broadband Games” or “the first Twitter Olympics”, the BBC’s primary role will be as it ever was – to bring a mass audience together for the biggest moments, whether in living rooms or at 22 “live sites” around the country.

“When people were thinking about analogue switchoff and a fully digital world, there was a sense you might lose those big channels that bring people together. That wish to come together for those big moments is still absolutely there in the UK,” says Mosey.

Not only that, he detects an increased desire for life-affirming communal viewing experiences during difficult times.

“In our research, we found people do want the country to be better. They want a better Britain for their children and their grandchildren,” he says. “We, of course, remain completely impartial on the legacy issues but among the audience, the hunger for something better – and that the Olympics could be the catalyst for that – is definitely there.”

Appointed in April 2009 with the mandate of planning the BBC’s London 2012 coverage across all genres and platforms, Mosey has largely had to invent his own job description.

As a former editor of the Today programme who counts stints as head of television news, controller of Radio 5 Live and, most recently, director of sport on his CV, Mosey’s ability to pick his way through internal BBC politics and the protocol of the Olympic world has helped. But, like Team GB, he must soon deliver under the harshest of spotlights.

“We have five big targets. One, bringing the nation together around big events. Second, brilliant coverage of the sport. Thirdly, independence and impartiality of the news coverage. The fourth is driving digital. And the fifth is about legacy.”

He admits the “L-word”, an Olympic cliche brilliantly skewered by BBC2’s comedy TwentyTwelve, is hard to pin down but points to an inclusive apprenticeship programme that is pegged to the Games as one success.

There was consternation at the International Olympic Committee’s headquarters in Lausanne at last year’s drive to slash 20% from the BBC sports rights budget. And, for all the protestations of BBC Sport executives to the contrary, Sir Paul Fox is not alone in speculating that this Games could be the last on the BBC.

Despite the protection of listed events legislation for now, rights negotiations that will begin after the Games are likely to consider the option of splitting them between broadcasters.

“As you know, we never talk about future rights deals. But the BBC has shown huge resilience in its portfolio. You can’t compare it with the 1970s and 1980s when there were monopoly providers. Sky Sports does a fantastic job and we’d be poorer without it, but we’d equally be poorer if you didn’t have the big events free to air, live on the BBC,” says Mosey.

For a BBC Sport department that has had a fairly traumatic few years as rights budgets have been slashed and half of its staff left before the move to Salford, the London Games is a chance to restate its prowess in covering major events and lay down a marker ahead of the arrival of a new director general.

A key challenge will be getting the tone right. The BBC faced criticism that its royal wedding coverage was overly portentous and reverential, and there is a danger that the orgy of pageantry this summer could lead to a dearth of irreverence to balance the authority.

A BBC man to his bones, Mosey sounds momentarily hurt. “We felt our royal wedding coverage was really strong and we were enormously proud of it. We were the BBC, doing a big occasion, and there is an element where we do have a Radio 4 role as the national broadcaster,” he responds. “When you get to the Olympics, there is a range of voices. We’re doing TwentyTwelve, the Ab Fab specials and so on. Trevor Nelson will be part of the commentary team for the opening ceremony – a Hackney boy, Olympics mad.”

If the BBC needs the Olympics, Lord Coe and company need the BBC too. As the prism through which the majority of the nation, particularly those outside London, will watch the Games, it will play a key role in shaping perceptions.

Mosey seems sure that once the opening bars of Elbow’s BBC Olympic theme are heard ahead of the opening ceremony, they will drown out the last remaining cynics. “The thing about tracking research is that people tend to underestimate their level of enthusiasm. Not many people are excited about the Olympics on a wet February day. But, come July 27, that will go up exponentially and you’ll get a massive level of interest. These are going to be great events we’ll never have again in our lifetime. Most people will take full advantage of that.”