Archives for February 2010

(The original cast of Mrs Dale's Diary, 1948)

So now 16.6 million of us know who killed Archie, alias actor Larry Lamb, in the roller-coaster soap EastEnders! We found out last Friday, on the 25th birthday of the show, as Stacey sobbed her way through the rising doof doofs of the much-loved and imitated theme tune. A live show, a fitting tribute to 25 years of great doof doof moments, and behind it a long, and occasionally chequered history of the BBC soap...

Originally, soaps came from the US - used to promote soap powders, and later a variety of domestic appliances, to American housewives in the 1930s. Being American they were, of course, immediately suspect to the British: bound to be low-brow, sure to be slushy or sensationalist. However, ironically - or perhaps rather cleverly - the first BBC soap was US-facing. Called Front Line Family, it hit the airwaves during WW2 as part of a propaganda push to bring the US into the war. It was followed by a succession of middle-class radio soaps, invariably depicting the stoic British bearing up to life's trials and tribulations. Most famously, the late Queen Mother was an avid listener of the radio soap, Mrs Dale's Diary (see pic above), stating that it was the only way of understanding what actually happened in a middle class family. An early case of royal market research, then...

However, it's true to say that the BBC has had an ambivalent relationship with the genre. The longest running soap in the world, The Archers - soon to celebrate 60 years of life on air in Jan 2011 - was created with an information agenda: to keep farmers informed about changes in British farming. It succeeded, but also charmed and engaged its listeners with real human stories. Without this, there was merely propaganda; but without real issues and themes, there was merely gossip. Likewise EastEnders, created in 1985 as a competitor to the working class juggernaut soap that was Coronation Street, hit its pitch of melodramatic and domestic in the very first episode (the murder of Reg Cox) and continues to this very day. It takes its audiences very seriously, reflects a world they see and know, delivers a daily cliffhanger - but also grapples with things that matter. As Jean Seaton, BBC Historian, so aptly says: The BBC 'public service' soap may be naughty but nice, may want above all to be popular, but it is also, occasionally, good for you.

One unexpected but actually entirely logical outcome of this is the way that BBC soaps have transformed themselves into vehicles for development broadcasting.

The World Service Trust now uses them to promote important messages on health, civic society, family issues etc all round the world. In fact, by way of a neat connection, Felicity Finch who plays Ruth in The Archers, has worked extensively on such projects in China, Rwanda and Afghanistan. In a recent interview, she spoke proudly of their real social impact, but also underlined emphatically that if they succeed, it's because first and foremost they have great characters and great storylines.

From Albert Square to Afghanistan is a long way, but soap can take us there and back again. If you want to know more about soap - its past, present and future - BBC History has teamed up with the National Media Museum in Bradford to explore all this in a Year of Soap. Check out the BBC History site.

Press and online coverage following yesterday's announcement at Mobile World Congress regarding our plans to roll out a series of mobile applications to stream news, sport and the iPlayer has been predictably extensive.

Online forums, blogs and specialist sites were very swift to pick up on the news, with most merely repeating what we published in our Internet blog. All the broadsheets gave fairly neutral reportage initially, with the Telegraph celebrating the news that football fans will be able to watch the World Cup on their smartphones. The Guardian and the Independent recognised that the reaction from other news organisations to the BBC News app may be less than enthusiastic. The Times also identified that: 'The move will also intensify the debate about paid-for content in the media sector.'

By this afternoon paidContent, Digital Spy and MediaWeek all reported on the move by the The Newspaper Publishers Association (NPA): 'to lodge an objection with the BBC Trust calling on the governing body to apply its Public Value Test to the service'. Covering the same story, BBC News have reported that: 'A spokesperson for the BBC said that its online service licence, granted by the BBC Trust, was "quite explicit in allowing the BBC to repurpose its online content for consumption on mobile devices".'

Clearly, this is a case of 'watch this space'...

Just as TV didn't end up killing the radio star, it doesn't look like on-demand is going to kill linear TV. Current evidence suggests that on-demand is actually enhancing the live TV schedule, rather than replacing it.

Here are seven facts that are testament to on-demand's positive influence on the live TV schedule:

Fact 1 Most catch-up is close to first broadcast

The bulk of PVR and iPlayer viewing is in the first 24 hours after live transmission - suggesting that the bulk of 'on-demand' is in fact catch-up and still anchored to the live channel schedule.

Fact 2 Young people still 'do' live TV

For 16 to 24s, live viewing still accounts for over 90% of the TV they watch. In fact, for the whole audience, catch-up viewing (including PVRs, VCRs and iPlayer) only accounts for 5% of the TV we watch. This is growing, but very slowly.



Fact 3 Audiences can only take so many channels

The number of channels viewed per person per week has only grown from 7.1 in 2001 to 8.5 in 2009. But there are hundreds of channels available in the UK.



Fact 4 iPlayer is not the main catch-up device

50% of all BBC time-shifting is via the PVR compared to 15% via PC iPlayer. For 16 to 24s, iPlayer usage rises to 31% of all time-shifting and PVRs is 46%.

Fact 5 TV viewing is not in decline

TV hours watched per head in the UK have remained stable since 2001 at approximately 25 hours per week. There is no evidence of decline - the latest quarter of figures has actually shown a slight increase.

Fact 6 Time-shifted viewing gets higher AIs

The ability to view content you want at your convenience has led to AIs (Audience Appreciation Index) for all programmes going up and especially for those programmes that audiences have time-shifted, by approximately 5 percentage points.

Fact 7 We still love our TV sets

10m people watch any kind of online video in the UK but only 0.4% of the population watch TV through online alone.

Future viewing

There will be a crucial role for on-demand in audiences' lives and it will undoubtedly become greater as it makes the journey from the PC to the television through IPTV (Internet protocol TV).

But predictions suggest that it will only ever account for a relatively small percentage of overall viewing and the bulk of it will revolve around the immediate linear schedule.

Why is the live schedule so robust?

This doesn't seem to be for technological, commercial or structural reasons, but human ones.

For all that we claim we want personalisation, choice and control, our ability to digest the information and time required to exercise it is limited; we need guidance, simplicity and someone to do the hard work for us.

We're also still led by the fundamental desire to be part of something, to share experiences and to use TV as a social currency. The live schedule is the only place to do this.

On-demand may never compete with live TV in terms of overall viewing - but it provides convenience and choice, and crucially, the sense that TV is still innovative and relevant, 50 years after it was 'new media' itself.

(Justin Bairamian is Head of Audiences, BBC Vision)

You may have already heard the news that today at a keynote speech at Mobile World Congress, BBC Director of Future Media & Technology Erik Huggers has announced that the BBC is to offer a new range of applications that will deliver BBC Online services to a range of mobile devices. Licence fee payers have already been able to access the BBC website on mobile phones for eight years and today's announcement means that public service content can be better enjoyed on the move.

Erik's own blog post concerning the evolution and thinking behind the initiative is here on the Internet blog, as is David Madden's post demonstrating the News, Sport and iPlayer apps in more detail. And for even more detail we have Pete Clifton getting to grips with the implications of the BBC News app on the BBC Editors blog.

The BBC press release detailing the new mobile apps can be read here

To read the full posts and to comment click on the links above.

Over at the BBC Internet blog both the blog's editor, Paul Murphy, and Seetha Kumar - Director of Future Media & Technology - have been posting about the BBC Online Suppliers Design Expo. Meanwhile, Bronwyn Van Der Merwe, the Head of BBC Design and User Experience has written comprehensively about a visual redesign of the BBC's digital services.

It's a fascinating insight into the creative proces that goes into rolling out a new look for the BBC online presence, as well as revealing that not only has the BBC Design and User Experience department been working with the legend who was art director of the Face in its peak years but that even way back in 1997 About The BBC was an integral part of the Corporation's web offering! (see pic above)

To read the posts and comment visit the BBC Internet blog

It's early May 1951. The Festival of Britain is about to begin, and the Tate Gallery is opening a major exhibition of the UK's most famous living artist, Henry Moore.

And on TV the BBC is about to broadcast a programme now generally considered to be the UK's first ever television arts documentary. John Read's half-hour film portrait of Henry Moore pointed the way for all of us who've ever tried to capture a contemporary artist on camera - check out John Wyver's excellent blog on Read to find out just how pioneering and influential this film is.

Now, thanks to the enlightened partnership of the Henry Moore Foundation, working with Tate Britain, all of Read's six films on Moore, along with other BBC documentaries, interviews and reports made over nearly five decades, have been digitised and released online, to coincide with - what else? - a major new Henry Moore exhibition at Tate Britain. In due course this treasure-trove of material will be available for use by other galleries across the UK.

There is rare footage of Moore at work in his studio, following the process from early sketches to final creation. If you've ever seen the huge Reclining Figure that stands today outside the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, its exact moment of birth, is captured on camera.

We see Moore talking to John Freeman in the legendary interview series Face to Face. We see him looking back on the extraordinary wartime images he made of Londoners sheltering underground from the Blitz. Then comes Moore in old age, talking one last time on camera to Read and reflecting on an epic career in art.

Oh, and there's, er, Richard Bacon, helping to move a mighty Moore sculpture and introducing the artist's work to a new generation on Blue Peter in the late 1990s. All the variety of the BBC is here, in the survey of a single life.

I'm constantly amazed at the sheer range and depth of the BBC Archive. Unlocking its full riches could take a lifetime, but exciting collaborations like this, with partners who care about enriching the digital public space, show what's possible.

On January 15th the BBC broadcast over 70 appeals for Haiti on behalf of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC). Since then, hundreds of thousands of people across the world have raised money, and across the UK BBC staff are no exception, raising money through collections, cake sales and local events.

The total raised by the DEC now stands at over £70m. This is far more than most emergency appeals. Typically, an emergency appeal will raise £10-20m; the most recent exception being the 2005 East Asia Earthquake Appeal, which received around £60m in donations. And, of course, the 2005 Tsunami Appeal raised an extraordinary £300m. Lessons learnt from post-Tsunami disaster relief are being applied to the way agencies are now working in Haiti. Their priorities are moving from immediate aid to reconstruction and recovery: money donated to the DEC Haiti Appeal will be spent over three years, a longer period than usual.

But it's not just the DEC appeal which is current. Sport Relief is in the run-up to an appeal on 19th March. And Blue Peter is looking for a charity partner for its 2011/12 appeal.

The BBC's newest appeal, the BBC Wildlife Fund, is facing some interesting challenges. The programme supporting the appeal will go out on BBC Two on Sunday June 20th. This is a very different slot from BBC Children in Need and Comic Relief - typically a Friday night on BBC One, and a great deal of work is going into how to make the programme 'appeal' to a BBC Two audience. There's also the small matter of a World Cup match between Brazil and Ivory Coast which takes place at the same time, potentially splitting a family audience.

With four months to go, the production team is starting to shoot the films which will tell audiences how the £1.8m raised from the 2006 BBC Wildlife Fund Appeal was spent. Charity staff are putting together off-air events and promotions. The BBC's interactive technical team (ITACU) is looking at how the telephony and donation systems will work. There's new branding; fundraising packs are being assembled. The BBC Wildlife Fund will benefit from the experience of the more established appeals, but crucially, in the run up to the appeal, it will need to find its own distinctive ways to move and involve the audience.

This morning the BBC released additions to its original disclosures around executive pay and expenses. These include lists of the business-related expenses of the 107 most senior decision-makers in the Corporation for the period July to September 2009. We have also published the Gifts and hospitality register for these senior managers covering the period April to June and July to September 2009.

In addition to this we've published the total amount that we pay to artists, presenters, musicians and other contributors over the financial year that ended in March 2009. This comes to £229m - 6.56% of the Licence Fee (further details are contained here).

Here's a round-up of some of the headlines:

In the Daily Mail: 'BBC pays £230million every year to top presenters and actors'.

The Independent earlier in the day had the headline: 'BBC pays £229m a year for 'talent'' (though they later amended their online copy to read: 'BBC's top stars paid £54 million') while Broadcast gave us: 'BBC spent £229m on talent last year' (note: this is a subscriber only link).

The Guardian concentrated on the proportion that went to presenters earning more than £150,000 per annum with: 'BBC spent £54m on top-earning stars'.

Predictably, by this afternoon, the Evening Standard had escalated the revelation into an: 'Outrage over BBC cover-up of stars' £230m pay' - indicating that the story may still be appearing over the next few days.

Meanwhile the Telegraph while also running with the response of MPs to the talent disclosures ('BBC like the 'Duckhouse gang' for not disclosing star salaries, say MPs') but also focussed on the executive expenses, with: 'BBC executives' expenses up by 8 per cent'. Later in the day Broadcast also focused on executive cuts with: 'BBC execs cut back on presents' (subscriber only article), reporting that BBC execs had been, ' cutting back on claims for presents and extravagant schmoozing.'

On Wednesday this week, the Church Of England's Synod will debate a motion tabled by Nigel Holmes on the issue of religious broadcasting on television. The motion says coverage that was, "once exemplary, now marginalises the few such programmes which remain" and "completely ignored the Christian significance of Good Friday 2009". In a background paper that accompanies this motion, Nigel says the hours of religious and ethical TV broadcast on the BBC have fallen from 177 in 1987, to 155 in 2007.

Ahead of the Synod, the Sunday Telegraph did an interview with me that explored these issues. The article appeared on Sunday under the headline "Church is 'living in the past' says BBC chief". Great headline - but the truth lets the story down. The problem is: I am that BBC chief and I definitely didn't say that. In fact there were a lot of things in the Sunday Telegraph article that surprised me when I read them.



As the BBC's Head of Religion I feel that simply totting up the number of hours of religion we broadcast is not a fair way to measure its value. More is not always better. The range and quality of our programmes - the vast array of live worship; music and documentaries to mark Christian festivals across BBC TV radio and online; Songs Of Praise; landmark documentary series like the recent A History Of Christianity with Diarmaid McCulloch - and the ease with which people can view those programmes on TV and now online thanks to iPlayer, I feel are equally important.

The Sunday Telegraph article quotes me as saying that the BBC should not give Christianity preferential treatment. The question I was actually asked was whether minority faiths should be treated differently from other faiths - to which I replied that all faiths should be treated in the same way and that I don't believe in treating any faith differently. It's all a bit different when you put it in its proper context, isn't it?

The article in the Church Times (editor's note: the full interview is firewalled until Friday 12th February) is a truer reflection of my point of view - and a laudably accurate treatment of the interview I gave them.



In truth, hours of TV religion programming change year-on-year and there is no trend downwards. And, for the record, we are currently broadcasting 164 hours of religious programmes a year on BBC Television (and this figure does not take into account drama, arts and news programmes which also cover religious and ethical topics). We have some great new commissions at Easter, from a special service at King's College entitled Easter At King's, and a documentary about the meaning of Easter for Good Friday on BBC One, to an investigation into whether Christians are being persecuted for their beliefs today in secular Britain (also for BBC One).

We're also investing more in our coverage of religious festivals and worship programmes.



Religion on the BBC is safe in my hands. Watch the output and forget the prophets of doom.

The latest addition to the BBC's burgeoning Archive site was launched last weekend - a collection of material detailing the rise and fall of infamous Nazi propaganda broadcaster, William Joyce, aka Lord Haw-Haw. And it throws a fascinating light on the first steps towards defining the Corporation's independence. I caught up with BBC Archive producers, Emma Papworth and Kate Wheeler, to discuss how the written and audio records have been used to tell the story.

In the first years of World War Two, the morale of the British population - who had already recently endured 'the war to end all wars' - was not good. To add to the gloom, the BBC had chosen to adhere to the government's recommendation to cancel all entertainment as unnecessary, leaving the populace faced with a dull diet of officially sanctioned news and organ recitals. As a result, even as early as September 1939, listeners began tuning into enemy broadcasts from Hamburg. At one point the figures approached 9 million.

It was apparent that the nation's broadcaster had to do something to stem the flow as well as playing a role in boosting flagging spirits. As a letter from an army major pointed out at the time, there was: ''only one real remedy and that lies entirely in the hands of the BBC''. Director General Frederick Ogilvie decided that a break from strict government guidelines was in order and thus was born a service that was tailor made for entertaining the troops as well as reinforcing British values through a broad range of cultural programming. In this sense we can thank Lord Haw-Haw for helping define the BBC we know and love today!

Emma who has led this project, has spent a lot of time drawing on both the BBC's document archive at Caversham as well as the audio library at Windmill Road. and is fast becoming the team's 'war expert'. Both producers were keen to point out the importance of the war, not just from a cultural perspective but also as a key moment in the BBC's archive itself as BBC staffer, M G Farquharson, realised how interesting these historic moments would be for future generations and more than doubled the amount of material that was preserved.

Kate's assessment of Ogilvie's brave decision is that it not only confirmed the importance of the Corporation's independence, but also ushered in a new era of British satire, as broadcasts like ITMA made fun not only of the Nazis, but also home front inconveniences such as food rationing.

2010 looks set to be a great year for the Archive site with more material being uncovered from the Corporation's war years, as well as key additions to the BBC's Year of Science and fascinating glimpses into past incarnations of Dr Who. Watch this space!