Round-Up Week 14 (2- 8 April 2016)

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

Awards

Fifteen-year-old pianist Jackie Campbell from Salford won the Keyboard Category Final and will progress through to the semi-final of BBC Young Musician 2016.

Celebrations

BBC Music announced this week that BBC Music Day is returning for its second year on Friday 3 June 2016, celebrating all types of music from around the UK and the Channel Islands.

Announcements

Drama

On Monday BBC Three announced the cast for Doctor Who spin-off, Class; and BBC Daytime announced the acquisition of Irish drama Red Rock. Other exciting drama news included confirmation that Jack Thorne (The Fades) will be adapting Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials for BBC One, and CBBC announced a brand new children’s football drama, Jamie Johnson, which is set to hit TV screens around the Euro 2016 Championships. Sherlockfans will also be glad to hear that series four has started shooting this week as did the Call The Midwife Christmas special and sixth series.

Birmingham fans of Peaky Blinders had exciting news, that a preview screening of the first episode of the new third series will take place in the city, ahead of airing on BBC Two in May.

Comedy

BBC Three announced a double series commission on Tuesday: award-winning Cuckoo starring Greg Davies, Taylor Lautner and Helen Baxendale will be back for a fourth and fifth outing.

Documentary

Later in the week BBC Three made another couple of announcements - that their thought-provoking British documentary Life And Death Row is set to become the network's first serialised documentary made exclusively for digital audiences, Life And Death Row: Love Triangle.Two further new documentary series commissions were unveiled from the network, from two of the channel’s original and highly acclaimed investigative presenters - Stacey Dooley and Reggie Yates. Damian Kavanagh also highlighted some recent successes for BBC Three on the blog.

News

BBC News announced their ‘all-day Today programme’, a day of special live coverage examining how the movement of people is changing the world we live in and how our economies develop.

Sport

BBC One announced that Gabby Logan, Ade Adepitan, Daráine Mulvihill, and Rachael Latham will lead the presenting team at the 2016 Invictus Games. While Barbara Slater blogged about the summer's sporting coverage to come in 51 international football matches, 28 Olympic sports, 1 sporting summer.

Radio

BBC Radio 3 announced they will mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare with a special season of programming celebrating the four centuries of music and performance that his plays and sonnets have inspired.

Regions

This week, BBC News NI announced coverage for Elections 2016 while colleagues at BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Radio Foyle revealed Love Letters From The Front, a new 30-minute documentary and major 137-part series on the networks, telling the compelling real-life story of Eric Appleby, an English soldier, and his Irish sweetheart, Phyllis Kelly.

Meanwhile BBC Wales launched the Tower project in partnership with BBC Radio 1Xtra, Radio 2 and BBC News Online - a project to capture life in Cardiff’s Butetown. 

Corporate

The BBC announced a new contract with IBM to supply outsourced finance, accounting, payroll and associated technology services.

Broadcast Highlights 

Television highlights include: the semi-final of The Voiceon BBC One. Also on BBC One the start of Peter Moffat's much-anticipated new drama Undercover. BBC Two had highlights from The Masters Golffirst day on Friday and the Euro 2017 Qualifier: England v Belgium. While BBC Four hosted BBC Young Musician 2016 Keyboard final.

On radio was Madam Butterfly live from the Met on Saturday, in Opera on 3 on Radio 3, a new series of The Reunion started on Radio 4 on Sunday, while Composer of the Week was Vaughan Williams on Radio 3 and on Thursday actor Dougray Scott celebrated the 50th anniversary of one of the world's best-selling, and most culturally resonant, novels: To Kill A Mockingbird.