London 2012: China’s Olympic social media base in Essex

Chinese internet giant Tencent has set up quarters in Romford, Essex for the London 2012 Olympics.

Dozens of technicians are based there, and two state of the art TV studios have been built in a former youth club.

Every evening, China's gold medallists are driven to Romford from the Olympic venues all over London to take part in a television programme broadcast on the internet.

They are joined by their families - either in person or via an internet video call.

Tencent brings news and social networking to hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers. Its properties include the QQ website and instant messaging service - by some measures the world's largest - and a Twitter rival Tencent Weibo, which claims to have over 300 million active users.

Rory Cellan-Jones went to look round the Chinese media hub to learn more about it.

Video Journalist: Dougal Shaw