A round-up of BBC announcements and press releases and blogs, plus some highlights from our TV, radio and online output this week.
Announcements and Press Releases
Search for new artists to join Horizons scheme in its third year
The Horizons project, a collaboration between BBC Wales and the Arts Council of Wales to support and encourage new Welsh musical talent, is about to enter its third year and is looking for applications from new artists.
BBC Food and Farming Awards are back for 2016
Chef, food writer and restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi leads the search for the best of British food, drink and farming in the 16th BBC Food & Farming Awards.
New face of BBC Proms Inspire: Nurturing the nation's brightest young composers
For the past 18 years, the BBC Proms Inspire scheme for young composers has offered a platform to 12-18 year olds across the UK to develop their skills, share their ideas with like-minded composers and get their music heard. In 2016 the scheme is expanding, offering composers of the future new opportunities and events year-round to encourage and support them.
BBC Audio Drama Awards 2016 announcements
The finalists for the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2016 have been announced this morning, with nominees including Alfred Molina for Best Actor, Sue Johnston for Best Actress and Eleanor Tomlinson for Debut Performance. The line-up also includes Cabin Pressure - starring Benedict Cumberbatch - for Best Scripted Comedy.
BBC Two's The Fall series three - the endgame has begun
Picking up at the moment where the heart-stopping series finale left off in series two, Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan return to BBC Two in their iconic roles as the battle between Detective Superintendent Gibson and Paul Spector reaches its terrifying conclusion in Allan Cubitt’s intense psychological thriller, The Fall.
BBC Music Celtic Connections showcases UK's biggest winter music festival across TV, radio and online
BBC Music Celtic Connections 2016 will see a bonanza of performances from the UK’s biggest winter music festival, showcased across television, radio and online.
The Real Marigold Hotel takes an all-star cast on the journey of a lifetime.
BBC Two announces new travel documentary series The Real Marigold Hotel
An ambitious new travel documentary series, The Real Marigold Hotel (above), which takes an all-star cast on the journey of a lifetime.
BBC Entertainment re-affirms its commitment to the Nations
A range of entertainment recommissions from independent production companies based across the UK.
Current affairs series Inside Out back on BBC One for new series
A new series of the regional current affairs series.
Comedian Rhod Gilbert to front BBC series: UK's Best Part-time Band
Comedian Rhod Gilbert hosts a new prime-time BBC Four programme in which he embarks on a road trip across the country, on a mission to find the UK’s Best Part-time Band.
Jack Garratt named as winner of BBC Music Sound of 2016
The artist-producer and multi-instrumentalist Jack Garratt has been named the winner of the BBC Music Sound Of 2016 list of the ones to watch this coming year.
Connected TV is king for BBC iPlayer over the festive period
EastEnders, Mrs Brown’s Boys, The Apprentice and And Then There Were None were the most popular shows on BBC iPlayer over the festive period.
Blogs
From two pennyworth to the Mediterranean
Stuart Prebble, Executive Producer, StoryVault Films explains how the series My Mediterranean with Adrian Chiles came about.
New Year. New Look. New Beginnings
Niki Carr, Head of Marketing at BBC Three introduces a new visual identity for the channel.
Making 'The Day the Clown Cried' with the BBC South team
Broadcast Journalist Richard Latto explains the background to a new BBC Radio Solent iPlayer documentary, The Story Of 'The Day The Clown Cried' featuring exclusive unseen material from one of the world's most notorious unseen movie projects about the Holocaust.
Inside Out: The best of local journalism returns across English Regions
How the regional roots of the BBC's regional current affairs series Inside Out makes for a distinctive programme.
Three Days of Terror: Charlie Hebdo Attacks
Documentary filmmaker Dan Reed tells the story of making a This World documentary about the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks as a terrorist opened fire at the Bataclan down the road.
The future of BBC News
Director of News and Current Affairs James Harding writes about future strategy for BBC News.
Radio, TV and Online Highlights
The Age of Loneliness (BBC One)
Award-winning film-maker Sue Bourne believes loneliness has to be talked about. It affects so many of us in so many different ways and at so many different stages of our lives. So she went out to find people brave enough to go on camera and talk about their loneliness.
In this clip, Bob Lowe, aged 93 talks about the loneliness he has felt since the death of his wife and how he takes immense comfort knowing that her ashes are always close by.
War and Peace (BBC One)
The first episode in the six part adaption of Tolstoy's War and Peace aired on Sunday 3 January. Read the Julia Raeside's Guardian piece on false claims of complaints about mumbling and James Norton's (Prince Andrei Bolkonsky)"really quite brazen nostrils".
The Orchestra that Defied Hitler (BBC Two)
First-hand accounts of life during the Siege of Leningrad are combined with an account of how composer Shostakovich wrote his monumental Leningrad Symphony.
Pierre Boulez
Following the announcement of composer and conductor Pierre Boulez's death earlier this week tributes and archive programmes have been made available on the Radio 3 website. A two-hour programme celebrating Boulez's 80th birthday is available via BBC iPlayer.
Boulez, who had made appearances at the BBC Proms and worked with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, was also discussed in a Front Row feature on BBC Radio 4 with former Controller of Radio 3 and Proms Director, Nicholas Kenyon.
On Monday 4, Victoria Derbyshire revealed in latest video diary how she is losing her hair as a side-effect of chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer.
6 Music's Chris Hawkins continues to build his Alternative Jukebox on BBC Playlister. Chris writes on the 6 Music website, "The aim of the Alternative Jukebox is to capture BBC 6 Music’s alternative spirit whether classic, cover, niche or unusual." Chris also appeared on Celebrity Mastermind, coming second with a specialist subject of Coronation Street.
Jon Jacob is Editor, About the BBC Blog
