ITV

Tag: BBC’s

  • BBC’s ‘Doctor Who’ lands in Germany

    MUMBAI: UK pubcaster BBC’s commercial arm BBC Worldwide is bringing the new Doctor Who series to Germany through a deal with commercial broadcaster ProSieben.

    ProSieben have licensed both the first series, which starred Christopher Ecclestone and Billie Piper, and the second series, which is currently in production. Russell T Davies’ first series of Doctor Who attracted huge ratings and received critical acclaim when it aired on BBC One earlier this year.

    BBC Worldwide Germany head Isabelle Helle said, “The series has gained iconic status outside of the UK as well and has already been licensed to broadcasters in sixteen countries worldwide. We are excited that Doctor Who’s time travelling will now take him to ProSieben so that viewers in Germany can also enjoy the adventures of the Time Lord and his companions.”

    ProSieben Head of Programming, Thomas Schultheis said, “Doctor Who is one of the most clever and entertaining series to come from Great Britain. The production values are visibly high and Russell T Davies’ scripts provide top quality entertainment for a wide range of viewers: from science fiction fans to family audiences.”

    The series of thirteen 45 minute episodes is likely to start on ProSieben next year. Doctor Who is a co-production of BBC and CBC in Canada. The series has been licensed to a number of territories including Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway.
        
          

  • 3rd season of BBC’s ‘Jasoos Vijay’ returns to DD on 4 September

    MUMBAI: Doordarshan is capitalising on the vast terrestrial reach eas to impart the message of removing the stigma of AIDS’ through the interactive detective drama series – Jasoos Vijay.

    With the aim to employ television as a vehicle to campaign for the arrest the spread of HIV/AIDS, Doordarshan has announced a new season of Jasoos Vijay. on 4 September.
     
     

    With the idea to educate people not only about the disease but also the sufferings of affected people. Doordarshan director of development communications, Usha Bhasin expressed satisfaction that Jasoos Vijay is going back on air at such a prime Sunday evening slot.

    “The programme combines dramatic action, excellent production values, and invaluable messaging about HIV/AIDS,” she said while announcing the next season of the series.

    According to Bhasin, “Jasoos Vijay is aimed particularly at those viewers who rely on Doordarshan for their TV entertainment.”

    ” The central character is himself portrayed as HIV positive, allowing the programme to address issues of the care and treatment of those living with the virus, and tackling the stigma and discrimination, as well as awareness and prevention. This messaging is extensively tested and researched before broadcast, ” Bhasin added.

    The audience research has been revealed that Jasoos Vijay and similar campaign has impacted viewers in a major way.

    Research Revealed:

    – awareness of HIV/AIDS has sharply improved
    – 86% said they had learnt something new about HIV/AIDS
    – 32% said they had discussed HIV/AIDS with others
    – much greater willingness to seek medical advice and use condoms
    – 56% said they had taken action, or intended to, as a result of the campaign
     
     

    Jasoos Vijay has been identified as the key part of a pioneering campaign to use via entertainment to spread awareness about HIV/AIDS.

    The series incorporates the message of HIV/AIDS awareness has been made by the BBC World Service Trust, with the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and Doordarshan.

    The mass media project is funded by the British government’s Department for International Development (DFID).

    The earlier detective series of Jasoos Vijay reached 186 million viewers apart, is an ambassador for HIV/AIDS awareness and sexual health.

    Conceived specifically as a vehicle for communicating information awareness of HIV/AIDS, the series also addresses a broad range of issues of concern to rural audiences within an entertaining and interactive drama format.

    The issues covered in the series include quack doctors, superstition, gender inequality and crimes against women (domestic violence, rape, the practice of dowry).

    Actor Om Puri, who is the host and sutradhar of the series, said, “Jasoos Vijay is a wonderful show that entertains the audience as well as spells out a very important message. The thriller format is perfect for the purpose – and the interactive element creates interest among the viewers as well as giving them the opportunity to participate in the show.”

    In the interactive series Puri who also figures as a guest star urges viewers to write in to him to seek information about AIDS. The main lead – Jasoos Vijay is played by Farhaam Khan.

    The third series is being dubbed in seven regional languages; Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Oriya, Gujarati and Assamese and will be on air simultaneously to the National broadcast on DD 1 from 4 September at 8:30 pm.

    BBC World Service Trust India director Andrew Whitehead said, “We are delighted to be able to support! the crucial work of NACO. The mass media has a vital role to play in promoting awareness about HIV/AIDS. “

    Speaking on NACO’s involvement, director general Dr S Y Quraishi, who is a former DG of Doordarshan also, said, “Jasoos Vijay has played a vital role in getting the message across to the people of this country about HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention”

    But such laudatory remarks have not been easy to achieve as it requires marriage of creative skills with knowledge of health communications.

    “The challenge in making the series comes from having to knit together seamlessly health messaging with a detective plot and ensure it remains a thrilling programme”, explains Jasoos Vijay creative director Devilka Bahl.

    Having tasted success with the Jsoos Vijay, the BBC World Service Trust, along with its partners, is designing youth reality show, Haath se Haath Milaa – a new series, involving Bollywood stars in spreading the message of HIV/AIDS.

    The new show is set to go on air in next few months.

    The Trust is also presently completing an ambitious nationwide survey about knowledge, attitudes and practices relating to HIV/AIDS, to measure the campaign’s impact.

  • BBC’s ‘Teletubbies’ head to Poland

    MUMBAI: As part of a major cross-media drive, BBC Worldwide is bringingthe cjhildren’s show Teletubbies to Polish national television for the first time. This month will see the famous children’s series, produced by Ragdoll, appear on Polish public broadcaster TVP. In india the show airs on Pogo.
     
     

    BBC Worldwide has licensed 156 episodes of Teletubbies to TVP for three years. In addition, BBC Worldwide has secured further deals to launch a Teletubbies magazine in Poland as well as two new Teletubbies DVDs in time for Christmas. The magazine, to be published in Polish by Egmont Polska, will be a 24-page, monthly publication and will launch in September.

    On the show The Teletubbies, Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa & Po, live and play over the hills and far away in a magical place called Teletubbyland, where just about anything can happen. The programme features live action films of real, happy children seen through the screens on the Teletubbies’ tummies. The programme is designed to be a ‘conversation’ with the child viewer and aims to nurture early childhood development by building children’s confidence and encouraging their curiosity.

    BBC Worldwide had secured a Teletubbies DVD deal in Poland earlier this year with local distributor, Best Film. A raft of ten Teletubbies DVDs was licensed under the agreement – with five currently available, two more planned for launch before Christmas and the remainder to launch next year.

    BBC Worldwide territory manager for Eastern Europe and CIS, Elin Thomas, said, “Teletubbies remains one of the BBC’s most successful international hits. It is a great testament to the series that after years of international success, the Teletubbies phenomenon is still finding new audiences around the world.” Teletubbies will also broadcast in Poland on BBC Prime.

     

  • Former transport manager triumphs on BBC’s version of ‘The Apprentice’

    MUMBAI: The BBC has announced that its version of The Apprentice in the UK has a winner. After a gruelling and intense 12 week job interview process,the show’s host Sir Alan Sugar has finally found his Apprentice.
     

    Tim Campbell, a former transport manager for London Underground from East London has come out on top. In the final episode screened last night 5 May on BBC Two the two finalists were whittled down to just one winner.

    He walked away with a ?100,000 year-long job contract with self-made tycoon Sir Alan Sugar.
    An ecstatic Tim said, “I tried to do the best in every single task and I gave 100 per cent. My aim throughout the whole of this was to just get the job.
     
     

    “I didn’t want to be a TV star. I didn’t want to be a Big brother-type contestant, I just wanted to better myself and do better for my family and make my mother proud and I think I’ve done that.” Tim’s personality, business acumen and determination have won him an army of fans throughout the 12 week run, including the notoriously hard-to–please Sir Alan.

    Tim has overcome family poverty and discrimination, and in the face of intense competition won the coveted position of The Apprentice. Sir Alan said, “I had in front of me some of Britain’s best prospects – but there were also some of Britain’s best losers, too. It was a tough decision, but Tim is a great fella and I think I’ve chosen the best of the bunch. I’ve found my real apprentice, someone who can handle himself, handle other people, remain calm and someone who has a great learning ability. He’s got it and that’s what I need.”

    The runner up was Saira Khan who says, “I am really pleased for Tim. Throughout the course of the last few months I have worked with him quite closely and he’s become a really good friend. I am sure it was a hard decision for Sir Alan but I think he’s chosen the right person for the job that he’s got in mind. The show has been a great experience for me and I have learnt a lot.”

    The BBC has also confirmed that The Apprentice has been recomissioned for a second series. The new series for next year, made for BBC TWO by Talkback, will see the winner land a top job with Sir Alan Sugar.

    BBC Two controller Roly Keating says, “The Apprentice has been a huge hit. In a very short space of time it has become one of the most talked about shows on television and the feedback from the audience has been fantastic. The programme is a part of BBC Two’s drive to find fresh approaches to business programming. It proves that audiences have a real hunger for programmes that reflect the cut and thrust of the business world in exciting new formats.”

  • Graphico to redesign BBC’s broadband site

    MUMBAI: BBC’s new media division in the UK has engaged design consultancy firm Graphico to redesign the site bbc.co.uk/broadband. The aim is to showcase the increasing amount of broadband audio-visual material available from the broadcaster.     
                
          

    The deal follows a competitive tender resulting in a short-list of five companies. The BBC chose Graphico because of its understanding of the broadband audience and its experience in the field. The BBC states that broadband is no longer an emerging platform. User take-up shows that broadband has already emerged and it is fast outstripping narrowband. The BBC wanted to develop a site that acknowledged the increasing maturity and sophistication of the medium, as well as showcasing the wealth of BBC content that is already available.

    While the shortlist provided a very competitive field the BBC’s editorial, technical and business development team believe that Graphico were the best team on the day to partner us in helping to drive Broadband Britain. Graphico will reposition the BBC’s broadband site, moving it away from a ‘how to access broadband’, and towards highlighting to users the benefits of the broadband experience, as well as a showcasing BBC audio and video material for those with a high-speed connection.

    To that end, the new site will include tabbed links to those content areas of bbc.co.uk with broadband material. Users will be able to search bbc.co.uk for broadband content by genre or channel, as well as by clips, video blogs and those pieces of material rated by users. The single broadband url will make it easier to promote all of our broadband services on-air. For the first time, material that is also available for mobile phones will be marked with a special symbol. In addition to BBC content, the site will link to external sites that the BBC considers to be editorially relevant, while third-party business partners will have access to a special extranet with improved access to BBC feeds, promotional material for editors and details about upcoming broadband commissions.

    The extranet will also supply real time data on audience consumption of BBC broadband content, designed to help third parties better understand these users. Graphico account director Michelle Mitchell and her team will ensure that the new site is flexible enough to integrate seamlessly with the existing content infrastructure. The challenge for Graphico is to make sure that it will be able to create an interface which can deliver the enormous breadth and depth of BBC broadband-worthy content within a visually engaging and user-friendly environment. Graphico is expected to deliver the new-look site in May and the site should go live at the beginning of next month.

    The BBC has also relaunched bbc.co.uk/mobile to provide mobile users with clearer navigation and an easy way to find BBC content available for mobile phones.

  • BBC’s GPCC report criticises ‘Nap Attack’

    MUMBAI: The BBC Governors have published the latest findings of their Programme Complaints Committee – for the period 1 October to 31 December 2004.

    The Governors’ Programme Complaints Committee (GPCC) is responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of complaints handling by the BBC, including hearing appeals from complainants who are not happy with the responses they have received from BBC management.

    The GPCC, considered 14 appeals in the above mentioned quarter. 13 were related to matters of fairness and accuracy and one concerned matters of taste and decency. After careful consideration the GPCC upheld in part one appeal.

    The complaint that was partially upheld related to the special 2002 Greatest TV Moments. A clip from the show Nap Attack was shown. It generated uproarious laughter from the studio audience. The complain was that the lampooning nature of Nap Attack had encouraged the general public to ridicule and humiliate vulnerable people suffering from a serious medical condition.

    The Committee decided that it had been inappropriate to show the clip in question out of context. In the original programme, the audience had been attuned to the situation faced by the principal contributors. They had been made aware of how traumatic and debilitating narcolepsy could be for sufferers.

    The audience of 2002 Greatest TV Moments knew nothing about the condition or the effect it had on sufferers’ lives. Because the clip had been presented out of its original context, the audience had reacted to it with laughter.

  • Nick Bryant appointed BBC’s South Asia correspondent in Delhi

    NEW DELHI: BBC’s Washington correspondent Nick Bryant who will be the organisations’ new South Asia correspondent arrived in the Capital.
    Bryant has been at the heart of the BBC’s news coverage in Washington for the last four and half years. He has led the organisations’ reporting on all the major news events during that time including the 9/11 attacks, Bush’s “War on terrorism” and the US elections. He has also reported extensively from Washington on the Whitehouse’s emerging and changing relations with India, Pakistan and the rest of South Asia.
    Nick says about the assignment, “So much of my time in Washington was spent covering the reaction there to events in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, it’s great to get the chance to report from sharp end of those stories. It’s also hard to think of a region where so many of the big geopolitical stories right now have such resonance – from aids to the digital divide, from the war on terrorism to the environment.”
    Bryant will take up his post next week. The BBC’s South Asia Bureau Editor Paul Danahar said, “Nick brings to the post the right mix of a regional and global perspective I wanted for this senior position. The BBC is now in 86 per cent of American homes where there is a growing interest in news from India so his presence here will also help us serve that new audience alongside our large existing audiences across South Asia.”
    A student of history at the Cambridge University, Bryant did a doctorate on American politics from the Oxford University. A visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, Bryant is currently writing a book on the history of John F. Kennedy’s relationship with the civil rights movement for the Yale University Press.

  • BBC’s ‘Asia Business Report’ appoints presenter

    MUMBAI: Rico Hizon has been appointed the new permanent presenter of Asia Business Report, BBC World’s live Singapore-based daily financial programme, a recent press release stated.
    The show telecasts latest news about the companies, economy, share and market in the Asia-Pacific region, with a mixture of studio and filmed reports. It is broadcast on BBC World at 4 am, 5 am 7.15 am and 9.15 am every weekday. Following every edition there is a one-minute update on the market indices in Asia.
    According to the release, Rico joined BBC World earlier this year to work as a reporter and producer on Asia Business Report. Prior to this, he spent eight years with CNBC, where he was also a financial news anchor.
    Before working at CNBC, Rico was a presenter and business reporter at the Manila-based GMA-7 network, responsible for covering capital markets, banking and finance, real estate, investment and corporate development news. Rico also anchored a daily market-driven show, Stock Market Live from the trading floor of the Philippine Stock Exchange.
    Before entering the broadcast industry, Rico was a lecturer in the Communication Arts Department of De La Salle University in his home country, the Philippines. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from De La Salle University.

  • BBC’s ‘Business Bizarre’ to commence new series with Indian focus

    MUMBAI: From 6 July, BBC World starts a new series of its popular programme Business Bizarre, profiling some unusual businesses in India. They run the gamut from Amul to Amar Chitra Katha. The 13-part series, sponsored by Chevrolet , can be seen every Sunday at 11 am with a repeat at 10 pm
    In the first of seven new episodes, the story of the widely popular Amar Chitra Katha comics takes centrestage. The Amar Chitra Katha saga began in 1967 when Anant Pai realised that Indian children were growing up without any ties to their roots.
    After knocking on several doors, Pai finally found a publisher in India Book House. Amar Chitra Katha was born with sales of less than 60,000 copies in the initial years. By the late 1970s, the comics were published in English as well as in several Indian languages, and were selling nearly 3.5 million copies annually. With plans to make interactive CDs, read-along books, stories in the audio cassette form and more, Amar Chitra Katha is now looking to explore newer avenues.
    Talking about the new series, the executive producer of the programme Kadhambari Chintamani says, “Working on this series has been an exciting journey of discovery as we unravelled the success stories of some interesting business ideas. The series brings out some intriguing facts about how these ideas made it big from scratch and will surely offer viewers valuable insights.”
    BBC World’s commissioning editor Narendhra Morar adds, “The enthusiasm with which the last series of Business Bizarre was received encouraged us to commission seven new episodes. These programmes too explore some fascinatingly unusual and intrinsically Indian businesses and we hope they will appeal to our discerning viewers.”
    Among the other businesses to be profiled in this series are Salim Kagzi, the largest manufacturer of handmade paper from India; SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association), organisation of poor, self-employed women workers who earn a living through their own labour or small businesses; and The Honeybee Network, an innovative business that taps the rural ingenuity and reaches out across countries and continents to help innovators share knowledge and expertise.
    Amul, the big white of the Indian Dairy Revolution, will also be featured in this series, as will Himalaya Drug Company, which has managed to combine centuries-old Ayurveda with the rigour of modern clinical research to form the world’s largest database of 500 medicinal herbs. Another episode will showcase Nalli, the market leader in silk sarees, which began as a small retail store in Chennai and has today emerged as the largest silk saree brand in the country with a turnover of over Rs 2200 million.
    The legendary dabbawallas of Mumbai who recently lectured management personnel about their business structure will also feature..Business Bizarre is produced by INTV for BBC World.