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Round-up week 41 (8-14 October)

Hannah Khalil

Digital Content Producer, About The BBC Blog

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A round-up of BBC announcements, press releases and blogs, plus some highlights from our TV, radio and online output last week.

Black and British

This week the Black And British season was announced, a series of programmes celebrating the achievements of black people in the UK and exploring the rich culture and history of black Britain.

#LovetoRead

New programming to support #LovetoRead – a campaign celebrating reading for pleasure and aiming to create a national conversation around books was announced this week.

Children in Need

Graham Norton has been confirmed as joint host of BBC Children In Need 2016 alongside Tess Daly, Greg James, Ade Adepitan, Rochelle Humes and Marvin Humes.

Statements

Due to personal reasons, Will Young decided to withdraw from Strictly Come Dancing read the statement.

Announcements and blogs

Corporate

BBC Studios, the BBC’s TV production arm, announced restructuring plans to ensure it is the right shape for the future.

Drama

Jaime Winstone and Samantha Spiro have both been cast to play Barbara Windsor alongside two child actors in BBC One drama, Babs.

Meanwhile, BBC Four has acquired the UK premiere of Emmy nominated, four-part series Roots from A+E Networks.

Comedy

After an initial pilot that aired on BBC One as part of the reinstated Comedy Playhouse strand earlier this year, BBC Comedy has commissioned a full series of Hospital People, produced by Rough Cut Television for 2017.

Entertainment

BBC Two is going back for more action from the famous House Robots as Robot Wars is set to return for a second series after its reboot this summer.

Factual

Tom McDonald, BBC Head of Commissioning, Natural History and Specialist Factual, announced six brand new commissions for BBC One and BBC Two.

Icelandic band Sigur Rós have taken time out of their World Tour to rework their famous track Hoppipolla for the BBC’s Planet Earth IItrail.

Meanwhile, BBC Four series Britain’s Lost Masterpieces discovers two more paintings in Ulster museum, elsewhere, following the success of Victorian Bakers earlier this year, BBC Two is now sending four modern-day confectioners back over 450 years of social and economic history to discover more about the surprising story of sugar in Back to Work: Confectioners.

News

BBC School report has launched a new My Team project, offering young people the chance to contribute to the BBC’s football coverage.

Children's 

Big Bird takes a trip to The Furchester Hotel to surprise his friend Elmo, as the series from CBeebies and Sesame Workshop returns to CBeebies.

Sport

Following the huge success of BBC Sport’s coverage of Rio 2016, BBC Events, working closely with BBC Sport, will broadcast the Victory Parade in Manchester for the Team GB Olympians and Paralympians later this month.

Radio

BBC Radio 2 presenter Elaine Paige officially opened voting for the Evening Standard Radio 2 Audience Award For Best Musical in this year’s 2016 London Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

The network also confirmed that Simple Minds will perform a special BBC Radio 2 In Concert on Thursday 10 November at Hackney Empire, London.

Finally from Radio 2 was announced a week of special programming exploring the theme of beauty for the network’s annual Faith In The World Week.

Elsewhere, in celebration of the BBC Radio 4 show’s 70th anniversary, Woman’s Hour has released the results of a poll looking at the lives of women in 2016, revealing that 86 percent of women surveyed would rather be a woman than a man, compared to 56 percent in 1947. The programme also announced that it will run a new Craft Prize, in association with the Crafts Council and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Radio 4 also announced that Kim Cattrall will return to the network this Halloween with a darkly brilliant tale of modern devilry: Ira Levin’s 1967 best-selling novel Rosemary’s Baby.

Blogs

This week the blog covered BBC wins at PPI Radio Awards 2016; Sabir Mustafa, Editor, BBC Bangla wrote about BBC Bangla at 75: the digital future is now; in the second of a new occasional blog series we looked at Radio Drama Company: Familiar faces from the 1960s. Stuart Thomas blogged about Books That Made Britain and Steve Humphries remembered The tragedy of Aberfan - fifty years on.

Broadcast Highlights

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