It’s almost a year since I started looking after the BBC’s Daytime and Early-Peak television output and over the last 12 months I’ve become incredibly proud of the quality, range, distinctiveness and diversity of what we offer viewers on BBC One and BBC Two. We broadcast around 1,400 hours of original UK programming each year, providing a huge amount of opportunity for programme-makers across the industry to make series that become part of people’s lives and daily routines. The One Show reaches more than 8 million viewers a week and other shows, such as the ironically named but educational Pointless, are not far behind that figure. Studies have shown that viewers attach great value to the BBC programmes that are a regular part of their lives and a large number of those kinds of shows are broadcast in Daytime or Early-Peak. Around these audience favourites we enjoy fantastic opportunities to bring through new and distinctive series, to take creative risks and to provide chances for a diverse range of presenters to gain experience.
We provide a large amount of new television for people for a very small proportion of the licence fee. Viewers expect BBC Daytime and Early-Peak programming to be of high quality and we deliver on that but we manage to do it on challenging budgets by commissioning high volume series that are stripped across weekdays, or in the case of a weekend show, like Saturday Kitchen, that play almost every weekend of the year. This can be a great model for making a television series because if you are making a large number of episodes then you very quickly need to make sure that you have a robust format that works, if it does then viewers will enjoy seeing the format play out many times over. It was heartening to hear Meryl Streep on The Graham Norton Show recently, say that when she is in the UK she always watches Homes Under the Hammer. If you’ve not seen it before then give it a go, you may be surprised at how compelling a watch it is and even though it’s being running for many years, it continues to evolve, Dion Dublin joined the presenting team a year ago.
The foundation for BBC One’s Daytime schedule is, of course, Breakfast (which, incidentally, reaches over 11 million viewers across weekdays and weekends and is run by BBC News). Following that we have a huge opportunity to cater for an audience who want to be challenged, to learn something about the world. In recent months, following Breakfast, we’ve had new series like Food: Truth or Scare which helped to demystify some of the conflicting nutritional advice that we all receive and just before Christmas we broadcast Sister Rita to the Rescue, a series about a no-nonsense nun in Manchester who is working with the local community to make a big difference to those in need. Consumer series Rip-Off Britain, with Gloria Hunniford, Anglea Rippon and Julia Somerville is in fine form and is breaking big stories such as a recent one about dangerously poor hygiene levels at a branch of KFC. It is incredibly popular with the audience who want the information it provides and like the accessible tone that it’s delivered in.
Coming up in the same slot from next week, we have Countryfile Diaries which will see the much loved brand return to Daytime (Countryfile was originally a Daytime series) for a new spin-off week in spring. It will take a snapshot of rural life across the nation at this time of year and alongside the legendary John Craven, some new faces will be joining the show. These will include recent signing Margherita Taylor, who will also become part of the Escape to the Country team. We are also returning to Animal Park for the 50th anniversary of the UK’s first safari park at the Longleat Estate. This time around the original presenters Kate Humble and Ben Fogle will be joined by new recruit Jean Johannson.
Brand new series coming up include the previously announced Matron, Medicine and Me, celebrating 70 years of the NHS and a new series that we’ve just commissioned called Ill Gotten Gains, about a tactic the police are using to take on major criminals where it hurts by confiscating their assets and selling them at auction houses.
Between Breakfast and the lunchtime news on BBC One we run a wide range of intelligent documentary series and factual-formats which are really distinct from what other channels show at that time. Other new commissions include Street Auction where Paul Martin will work with Danny Sebastian and Irina Aggrey to galvanise local communities into rooting out hidden treasures for a good cause and Dom on the Spot, where Dom Littlewood will investigate why so many on-the-spot fines are now being given out and will discover who the victims are behind these offences. And for the first time, long-running series Claimed and Shamed will see a presenter, Ore Oduba, guide viewers through what are sometimes quite complex cases of insurance fraud.
In the afternoons on BBC One, we run original British drama series that no other daytime service would offer made out of our drama village in Birmingham: the hugely popular Father Brown, which BBC Worldwide now sells all around the world; recent hit set in South Devon, The Coroner; and long-running lunchtime drama series Doctors which is set in Birmingham. In addition we have the Liverpool-based play-for-today series Moving On. Also in the afternoons, we show challenging quiz-shows and to complement Pointless, which just filmed its 1,000th episode, we have had recent success with For What It’s Worth, Think Tank and The Code.
Over the last year, we’ve had factual-entertainment hits such as Money for Nothing and The Instant Gardener, which have brought through new expert presenters such as Sarah More and Danny Clarke. Over the next 12 months, I’ve committed to creating six brand new factual-entertainment formats in the mid-afternoon slot. New commission Going Back, Giving Back will see Aled Jones accompany some really interesting characters, who are grateful for something extraordinary that has happened in their lives, on individual journeys to give something back to the world. There is still opportunity for programme-makers to pitch-in new ideas for this slot.
On BBC Two Early-Peak, we’ve just launched a hunt for two new Eggheads in Make Me An Egghead and have commissioned a brand-new quiz called Debatable in which Patrick Kielty will guide a contestant through a series of extremely tough questions where they will be helped or hindered by some well-known personalities who will debate the answer for them – whether they are right or wrong, there is fun to be had along the way. We’re always looking for other ideas for this part of the schedule that can complement existing favourites Great British Railway Journeys and Strictly: It Takes Two.
BBC Daytime and Early-Peak is thriving at the moment in quiz, factual-entertainment, consumer shows, documentary series, factual formats and drama. We work across all of these genres and in many ways Daytime is a genre of its own because we make television in a different way, harnessing the daily nature of our programmes to keep quality up and costs down. Audience appetite for this kind of television outside of peak-time remains really high. The increase in flexible working together with growing numbers of retired or semi-retired people are two of the factors contributing to the demand for what is sometimes an overlooked part of the television landscape. For those who are currently unable to watch during the day, there is always iPlayer which allows all viewers to catch-up on these programmes.
Dan McGolpin is Controller BBC Daytime and Early-Peak
- Read the press release on the Media Centre
