To finish 2013, members of the About the BBC team offer up their personal reviews of the year, revisiting blog posts, events and output from across the organisation.
Like the many presents I’ve yet to purchase and the seemingly endless cards I’ve failed to send, this post is in danger of not getting written. What started out like a good team idea to review our About the BBC year now feels like a mad dash for the finish line.
Drawing on 240 blog posts from throughout 2013 (nearly 100 up on 2012), I made good with a list at the very start of the research process. But now as the minutes tick away, the chances of including everything seem as unlikely as getting to watching every single programme I religiously highlight in my Christmas Radio Times.
Let’s at the very least, give it a go.
In BBC history terms, 2013 has been momentous. A new DG, along with new members of senior management, our departure from Television Centre in ‘West 12’, the official opening of New Broadcasting House by Her Majesty the Queen and the unveiling of Tony Hall’s vision for a future BBC have made 2013 a significant year.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, these events weren’t reflected in the feedback I got from friends when I asked them on Facebook, “What were your BBC-related highlights this year?”, for whom ‘output’ remained uppermost in their minds. Amongst their responses, particular mentions (reflecting my own interests) include: the 1953 Coronation coverage re-broadcast on BBC Parliament, The Fall, The Fiveish Doctors, the Glastonbury online coverage (for the sake of clarity, that comment was left by a member of the production team), An Adventure In Space and Time and the Tom and Jerry music which featured during the BBC Proms season this year.
But as About the BBC producer Hannah Khalil rightly pointed out, asking other people what they think is a cheating slightly.
Looking back over our posts, it’s the anniversaries which act as the most potent of reminders not just of this year, but of the longevity of some programmes and services the BBC provides. BBC Breakfast marked 30 years of broadcasting earlier in the year, so too 90 years for BBC Radio Drama and BBC Scotland (the morning radio programme Good Morning Scotland will also be marking 40 years at the end of this month – keep an eye out for a blog from producer and writer Graham Stewart about that.) BBC Radio 3’s Composer of the Week passed into its 71st year, BBC Three celebrated 10 years, and of course, Doctor Who marked its 50th with a range of programmes and events. Yes, I too shed a tear watching the final scenes in Mark Gatiss’ brilliant An Adventure in Space and Time.
As someone whose lifelong career plan was based around wanting to work at Television Centre, it shouldn’t be a surprise to learn that the BBC’s exit from our iconic Wood Lane has loomed large in my thoughts ever since the day I first started working in the building – coincidentally, the day Mark Thompson first announced the BBC would be leaving it. Since that time, I’ve indulged myself whenever I’ve walked out of the building with the idea of making an homage to Roy Castle’s famous tap-dancing sequence around the site for Record Breakers in the 1970s. I’d always put the idea out of my mind on account of its apparent ridiculousness. Then in the early part of this year, with our departure date set in stone, the need to at least capture the footage was paramount. A few days after I started, with some hesitant try-outs of ‘tap-dancing’ in the basement under my belt, the project gained momentum. A few weeks later we had galvanised 120 staff in their lunch hour, and persuaded them that for the purposes of their chilly lunchtime shoot, holding their hands in front of them as they jogged modestly around the ‘Doughnut’ would be sufficient for the end-piece. The final minute of the complete film still raises a smile. Pudsey is a particular star, I think.
Staff have a trot around the Doughnut to say goodbye to BBC Television Centre.
Leaving one building is necessarily followed by the arrival in another. In this case as necessitated by the largest staff move in the BBC’s history, the beginning of TV news broadcasts from New Broadcasting House had actually occurred a few days before the Goodbye to Television Centre programme on BBC Four, and a further full week before the keys were officially handed over (although the last equipment used by the BBC was switched off in December). The first news broadcasts from studios in the Newsroom was an exhilarating moment. Like watching the first ever edition of Breakfast Time as a kid 30 years before, watching Sophie Raworth deliver the first bulletin conveyed a sense that a chapter had ended, with a new one opening within a gnat’s whisker, the moment made notable for my inner TV nerd by the sight of a BBC News ‘endboard’ at the conclusion of broadcasts, something not normally seen on the News Channel. It was an exciting moment, in no small part underpinned 80 seconds or so of the updated News theme. News had a new home. A new chapter had begun.
That sense of collective excitement shared by staff across London and in some cases further afield, was experienced again a few weeks later when Her Majesty The Queen visited New Broadcasting House to formally open the building.
HM the Queen leaves after officially opening NBH
Another exciting day, not only because of our Royal visitor, but because that most rare of experiences had crept up on us comparatively unexpectedly: staff convening en masse. Colleagues emerged from their work, peering round doorways and down corridors, some tip-toeing to get a view, others resorting to watching the live stream of the News Channel on their mobiles. Here was a moment when staff shared in a special event. Wide smiles and a palpable sense of anticipation. A day not unlike last year when the Olympic Torch made its way to White City on its final leg to the Olympic stadium in Stratford.
Of course, no review can ever include everything. These – and those from Jen and Hannah at the end of last week – amount to personal reflections. But they remind us all that the BBC remains an incredibly exciting organisation to be a part of, one that sees a wide range of events and makes an enormous amount of output to. It’s a great privilege to be able to go some way to document the organisation’s ongoing story on this blog ourselves, and through the many voices of our contributors. And we’re very much looking forward to continuing to do that in 2014.
Jon Jacob is Editor, About the BBC Website and Blog.
- Read also Jen Macro’s That was the year that was
- And Hannah Khalil’s My BBC year
