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Alice Webb, Director, BBC Children's
Alice Webb, Director, BBC Children's, blogs about serving those who have adopted the internet from the BBC Children's perspective.
David Allen
Producer
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On Wednesday 9 September, the BBC launched a major content season of programmes and content across TV, Radio and Online to mark the next wave of BBC Make it Digital activity. As part of the season, the BBC Four archive collection Back to BASICS is available on BBC iPlayer, giving viewers a chance to look at programmes from the 1980s when the corporation launched the BBC Micro and the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Producer of the project, David Allen takes us through some of the highlights from those shows.
During the BBC's Make it Digital 'Year of Code', warm references have been made to our 1980s computer literacy campaign, featuring the BBC Micro. I happened to be in the right place at the right time and became a producer and editor of the project from 1979 to 1987 - a time when computing came into the home and the school. Looking back through rose tinted spectacles at our early research and over 120 hours of TV explaining and reporting 'the new technology', I get a curious...
Francesca Unsworth
Director, BBC World Service Group
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People from our Iranian audience recently gave BBC Persian’s editor their views on the BBC. ‘The BBC’s PTV (Persian TV) is part of our family life – the presenters and reporters are like our family members’, said one. Another had an even more impressive message. ‘By broadcasting debate programmes, BBC PTV helps democracy’, he said.
This is a bold claim to make about a TV channel. But in many countries, accurate, impartial news – broadcast without fear or favour, representing different points of view, and holding the powerful to account – is a rare commodity.
The Iranian authorities don’t make things easy for the Persian service. BBC Persian journalists are banned from Iran. Their families are subject to harassment and taken in for questioning. Government officials are forbidden from speaking to BBC Persian TV. Our satellite signal is periodically jammed. And yet still, 12 million people in Iran – half of those with a satellite – watch the BBC. That’s the power of the World Service.
On Monday we set out our proposals for the next ten years of the BBC, including our vision for how the World Service can address the democratic deficit of impartial news around the world.
In the...
Marc Jones
Media Scheduler, Red Button
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This week we pay tribute to the brave men and women who took part in the Battle of Britain 75 years ago, conduct a fond farewell to another year of the Proms and enjoy more live music with Radio 2's one-day Hyde Park festival. Sport fans can gear up for highlights from the Mountain Bike World Championships and join us in Chicago for the women's World Triathlon final.
Proms in the Park
As another fantastic season of orchestral music draws to a close, watch highlights from all four Proms in the Park concerts in Belfast, Swansea, Hyde Park and Glasgow.
Sat 12, 7:10pm-11pm
(Duration: 120 minutes)
Radio 2 in Hyde Park
Watch the eighth edition of Radio 2's festival in a day, featuring an array of top UK and international artists as well as showcasing brand new talent. Confirmed acts include Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams, Will Young, Leona Lewis and The Corrs.
Live:
Sun 13, 1:20pm-9pm
Highlights:
Sun 13, 9pm-9pm
Tue 15, 6am-7pm, 10.30pm-6am
Wed 16, 4pm-7pm, 10:30pm-6am,
Thu 17, 4pm-8pm, 10pm-6am,
Fri...
Julia McKenzie
Acting Head of Radio Comedy
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Comedy is undoubtedly the dominant art form at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival these days. In BBC Comedy, and especially those of us making radio comedy, this is a key time to spot talent and cement creative relationships. Comics who have been doing perfectly good jobs on the circuit or the occasional panel show now get the chance to declare to an often impossibly hot and sweaty pop-up venue: ‘This is what I have to say’.
For those of us looking for talent we are interested in all sorts of performers, from sketch and character comedians to comic actors and storytellers. Stand-ups too are...
Cassian Harrison
Channel Editor, BBC Four
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Broadcasters need to find new ways to reach modern audiences, says Cassian in a post which first appeared on Broadcast.
It’s amazing how transformative one tiny piece of technology can be. The touchscreen smartphone has now become the most successful piece of consumer technology since the wristwatch.
More than one in four people on the planet own one. Coupled with the growth in bandwidth – data connections that allow those users to consume everything from Snapchat messages to HD video – it’s clear: we’re long past a world where the BBC (or any broadcaster) could leverage an old-world grip...
Mark Friend
Controller Radio & Music Multiplatform
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People love the simplicity of radio. Simply turn it on and it’s your companion for the day from when you wake up to going to bed. It works anywhere, combines entertainment seamlessly with news, sport, travel and weather, and the content on offer is hugely diverse and of great quality. Around 90% of the UK listens to radio each week and almost all of that listening is live but it’s increasingly becoming easier, and popular, to catch up on your favourite shows whenever and wherever you want to – whether it’s by downloading BBC radio programmes when using the BBC iPlayer Radio app on your...
Paul Smith
Head of Editorial Standards
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Going Live hosts Sarah Greene, Phillip Schofield and Gordon The Gopher
My name is Paul, and I was Gordon the Gopher.
It does feel a little like a confession every time I say it. Of course, the truth is that these days I am really Head of Editorial Standards and Independents for BBC Network Radio, and then, I was really the producer of the Broom Cupboard with Phillip Schofield on BBC One. I was neither the first Broom Cupboard producer, nor even the first person...
Alice Webb
Director, BBC Children's
In Tony Hall’s speech on Monday, he talked of riding two horses - serving those who have adopted the internet, while at the same time making sure that those who want to carry on watching and listening to traditional channels continue to be properly served, too. Nowhere will this be more important than in Children’s.
Today, we’re celebrating 30 years of BBC Children’s presentation. That’s 30 years since Philip Schofield and Gordon the Gopher took over the BroomCupboard and began the live, on-screen links that‘ve been a kids' telly staple ever since.
We’ll celebrate with a TV special,...
David Holdsworth
Controller of English Regions
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Yesterday (Monday 7 September) Tony Hall set out plans for a more open BBC that works in partnership for the good of Britain, at home and abroad.
As part of this we’ve made some new proposals which build on the Local Journalism partnerships we have been managing for over a year, following our Revival of Local Journalism conference.
Since that conference I have been chairing a Local Journalism Working Group, with representatives from many of the local news organisations, that has wrestled with how the BBC can best help and how the sector can develop a more unified voice. Our proposals have...
Ana Lucía González
Senior Producer, Archive Development
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Crowdsourcing has been at the heart of the BBC Genome database project since its very launch. BBC Genome offers access to the BBC’s listings from 1923 to 2009 and was made possible by scanning more than 350,000 pages of the Radio Times magazine.
We used OCR (optical character recognition) as part of the scanning process which in some cases resulted in some errors in the data stored in the database - typos, punctuation errors, contributors’ names and odd formatting from each one of the listings. Errors like this one – whose Christmas is this? (Answer at the bottom of this...