BBC Children in Need
A round-up of BBC announcements, press releases and blogs, plus some highlights from our TV, radio and online output last week.
Awards
BBC programmes took home numerous awards from the 25th BAFTA Cymru Awards - we wrote a round-up blog with all the details.
Elsewhere, BBC Two’s Exodus: Our Journey To Europe won two prizes - best documentary and the special award - at Prix Italia. Meanwhile, debut author, K J Orr, a short story writer whose first collection was only published this year, has beaten a host of writers including two-time Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel to win the coveted BBC National Short Story Award with BookTrust for 2016 with her story Disappearances.
Appointments
Samir Farah has been appointed as the new Head of BBC Arabic.
BBC Children in Need
BBC Children in Need launched its fundraising campaign Do Your Thing, and is asking people across the UK to channel their passions, hobbies or dreams to do their thing and help change the lives of disadvantaged children and young people across the UK.
Announcements and blogs
Drama
Media packs have been published for two second series of BBC One dramas: The Missing and Oridnary Lies; as well as for the new series The Moonstone for BBC One. Elsewhere, the first look image of Elisabeth Moss in the second series of BBC Two's Top of the Lake was released.
Casting was also revealed for Peter Moffat’s New BBC One drama series, The Last Post. It was also confirmed that the network's drama Our Girl will return in 2017.
Comedy
This summer’s BBC Landmark Sitcom Season, which celebrated 60 years of the sitcom on the BBC and featured 17 programmes across BBC One, Two and Four and six brand new Comedy Feeds on BBC Three, has resulted in three series commissions, Shane Allen, Controller, Comedy Commissioning announced this week: Motherland, Porridge and A Brief History of Tim.
Entertainment
On Thursday 6 October the public song submissions process to find the UK’s entry for the 62nd Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv, Ukraine next May, opened.
Elsewhere, BBC One announced Let's Sing and Dance for Comic Relief.
Children's
CBeebies favourites will be dancing to The Crucible Theatre, Sheffield this November for a modern adaptation of The Nutcracker for the annual CBeebies Christmas show.
Sport
It was announced this week that tickets for BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016 go on sale this Friday 7 October at 9am.
Arts
Marc Brew, Kevin O'Hare, Kate Prince, Nahid Siddiqui, Kenneth Tharp and Jasmin Vardimon have been announced as Grand Final judges for BBC Young Dancer 2017.
Regional
Wales will take centre-stage on the BBC over the coming months, with three major dramas set in Wales - Ordinary Lies, The Green Hollow, and Hinterland - to be shown across BBC One and BBC Four.
International
BBC Bangla will present a series of programmes and events with audiences in Bangladesh and India to mark 75 years of broadcasting.
Blogs
This week's blogs included a write-up of BBC Writersroom's #WritingDoctorWho event; two birthday blogs in praise of Radio 4 programmes: From Our Own Correpondent and Woman's Hour at 70; Philip Raperport, Head of Marketing at BBC Radio 3 and Classical Music introduced a new series of promotional films for the network in How BBC Radio 3 is connecting audiences with pioneering sound.
We also pirouetted through some early ballet productions that formed the early days of the BBC Television Service in The early days of ballet at the BBC; and remembered the BBC’s first official historian Asa Briggs; plus celebrated BBC Films’ A United Kingdom which opened the 60th BFI London Film Festival this week; looked at BBC Local Radio stations featuring poems about their regions for National Poetry Day; and got a progress update on the site of the new BBC Wales HQ in Cardiff.
Broadcast Highlights
- Performance Live: Kate Tempest, Saturday 1 October, BBC TWO
- Hunting The Nazi Gold Train, Sunday 2 October, BBC TWO
- Louis Theroux: Savile, Sunday 2 October, BBC TWO
- Danger Mouse, Monday 3 October to Friday 7 October, CBBC
- Still Game, Friday 7 October, BBC ONE
- The Glory Of Glam, Saturday 1 October, BBC RADIO 6 MUSIC
- Sunday Feature: Philip French and the Critical Ear, Sunday 2 October, BBC RADIO 3
- Hardeep’s Sunday Lunch, Sunday 2 October, BBC RADIO 4
- Poetry Extra: National Poetry Day 2016, Sunday 2 October, BBC RADIO 4 EXTRA
- Composer Of The Week: Five Under 40 - Contemporary British Composers, Monday 3 - Friday 7 October, BBC RADIO 3
