Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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TIMETABLE
This is the main round for this year. We aim to commission most factual slots for the
financial year 2015-2016.
We will commission comedy for the first half of 2015-16. There will be a second
round in autumn 2014.
For details of our drama commissioning requirements, see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/radio/what-we-want/radio-4.shtml
Guidelines published
Pre-offers deadline
Pre-offers results
17th April
22 May 12 noon
Results released
Late July
At the top of each commissioning brief there is an indication of the track record we
require in suppliers to that slot. Please do not offer proposals unless you have the
necessary expertise.
For pre-offers we require only the minimum information to enable short-listing.
The following must be entered for each proposal:
title (of your proposal, not the slot)
commissioning brief number Enter each proposal in one schedule slot only. If
we consider it suitable for another slot, we will transfer it.
delivery date Enter a nominal date e.g. 01/10/2015
number of episodes
duration
short synopsis: maximum 200 words
Price per episode This information is managed by us. The guide prices quoted in
these guidelines is with only the rarest exceptions the maximum we will pay.
Long synopsis
Do not enter anything in this field at this stage. It will not be
read.
When commissioning editors have read all pre-offers and selected those they
consider worth further development, we release the results to you in Proteus.
Proposals will show as either rejected or re-requested.
If your offer is re-requested, this means we want to consider it in the final
submission stage. A re-requested proposal does not have to be set up from scratch
when entered as a final offer. It will of course need to be edited to reflect the
requirements for the final offers stage (see below).
Owing to the large number of submissions at this stage (typically over 3,000) we are
unable to provide feedback on rejected pre-offers.
Final submissions
You are invited to discuss short-listed ideas with commissioning editors. Time
pressures may require this to be by phone rather than face to face.
After your conversations with commissioning editors, the ideas you develop for final
submission should be entered in Proteus. Generally, final submissions will be those
which we re-requested at the pre-offers stage. It is also possible to submit fresh
offers which have not been discussed.
All proposals must be submitted in Proteus by the deadline.
Enter factual and comedy proposals in:
2015 2016 1
2015 2016 5)
At the top of each commissioning brief there is an indication of the kind of track
record we require in suppliers to that slot. Do not offer proposals unless you can
demonstrate the necessary expertise.
Be realistic in the number of proposals you submit, in view of the number of
programmes available, and observing the cap where this has been applied. If the
cap says a maximum 10 proposals per supplier, we will only read your first 10.
Fewer, better ideas are more likely to get through. In slots where each commission
is for multiple episodes, the number of commissions will be far fewer than the
number of individual programmes available.
The following must be submitted for each proposal:
title If your idea is commissioned you must not subsequently change this title
without written agreement of the commissioning editor.
brief number Submit each proposal in one slot only. If we think it suitable for
another slot, we will transfer it.
achievable delivery date (linked to anniversary / event dates where relevant)
price per episode Radio 4 has a set price it expects to pay for the majority of
programmes. This is entered automatically. If your idea requires a budget
significantly above or below the guide, make this clear in the long synopsis and
explain your reasoning. Only by very rare exception will we agree to commission
a programme above the guide price.
producer
executive producer Include CV in long synopsis field, if the exec is new to R4.
number of episodes
duration
The short synopsis for the final proposal must be under 50 words.
It should convey the essence of the programme.
The long synopsis must not exceed 2 x A4 pages of size 11 type.
key talent Any intended presenter/writer/abridger/performer etc should be
shown in the long synopsis. You do not have to secure talent agreement before
submitting an idea but you should let us know the degree to which named talent
have expressed an interest in the project or have intellectual ownership of it.
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Dont use the Notes field. Anything in this field will be deleted.
Dont insert a space or dots or asterisks before beginning the title.
Dont put double spaces in the title.
Dont put quotation marks around the title.
Dont start the title with a slot name, e.g. The Wednesday Debate.
Do begin titles in Proteus with The or A as appropriate, e.g. A Short History of
If you are preparing proposals offline to cut and paste into Proteus, keep the
formatting simple: bold, underline and italics only. Proteus will remove other
formatting, including bulleted and numbered points, as well as converting your
font to the equivalent of Arial size 11.
Supporting material (audio, books, scripts etc) must be delivered to the Radio 4
commissioning office by the closing date of the round. Complete the pro-forma in
section 2 of this document to provide us an inventory of what is sent.
Guide price Radio 4 expects to pay no more than the guide price for commissions
so please budget at this level. If the cost is expected to be significantly above or
below the guide price you must note this in the long synopsis of your proposal,
explaining the reason. Only in rare cases will prices above the guide be agreed.
If you have queries about budgeting or prices, speak to your business manager or to
Githa Weerasinghe, our Finance Partner.
Independent producers should contact Lesley Eaton, Legal and Business Affairs.
Editorial guide Details of the kind of programme needed for this slot
Programmes commissioned in the last round This is to help you avoid offering
ideas too close to what has already been commissioned. The list might not be
complete. Often, if contract or budget negotiations are outstanding, commissions
cannot be listed, so you may also wish to check with the relevant commissioning
assistant.
Proposal to include This cannot be a definitive list, as only you can fully know what
your idea needs for it to be properly assessed. Make your own judgement but if in
doubt put something in rather than leave it out. However, your long synopsis should
not be longer than two A4 pages.
It would be unusual to quote a writer or abridger if you had not already spoken to
them, but in some cases it will happen. If so, please make this clear. If you want to
pitch for an open commission for a writer, speak to a commissioning editor before
you approach the writer.
It would also be unusual to have gained the agreement of contributors, guests or
panellists ahead of an agreed commission. Again, it is useful for us to know the lines
you are thinking along, so potential running orders and cast lists do help.
Q: How do I know if an idea has already been commissioned?
Each commissioning brief gives an indication of what was commissioned for that slot
in the last round. In addition, the commissioning assistant can check specific titles.
Q: Once Ive received a conditional acceptance and all four conditions have
been agreed, do I need to talk to a commissioning editor before starting work?
Normally not, but sometimes the commissioning editor will want a pre-production
meeting. This is most likely to apply to major new series and we will initiate the
meeting. It will be designed to make sure everyone has the same understanding of
how the programme or series is to be made and what it is trying to achieve.
Q: How much should I contact the commissioning editor while making the
programme?
It is your responsibility to deliver the programme as agreed. The commissioning
editor will not normally get involved. The exception would be if changes are made to
what has been agreed, e.g. presenter, title, producer, executive producer.
Independent companies are expected to initiate at least one work-in-progress
conversation with the commissioning editor before recording their programme, and
must ensure the station is informed of any editorial policy issues.
Q: Does the commissioning editor need to hear it before broadcast?
No, but independent productions must be heard and approved prior to broadcast by
the Editor, Editorial Standards (sometimes referred to as the compliance editor).
It is the responsibility of your executive producer or editor to deliver a programme
which matches the editorial brief, complies with BBC Editorial Guidelines and is
technically fit for broadcast. The Editorial Guidelines set out the referral procedures
for issues of sensitive content or impartiality.
Q: Whats my proposal reference number?
You will find this to the left of the title in Proteus
RESPONSES TO PROPOSALS
Results will be released in Proteus. We do not send out hard copies.
Proteus will display one of four standard responses to each offer:
rejection
shortlist
pilot
conditional commission
Rejection
We will provide brief feedback on our reasons for not commissioning a proposal.
Shortlist
Shortlisting happens for 3 principal reasons:
We are seriously interested in the idea but feel more work is needed. In this
case, the commissioning editor will explain what we are looking for.
Competing offers delay the commissioning decision. We need more information
before deciding between them.
We do not have space to commission the idea but want to keep it in reserve in
case gaps appear in the schedule later.
We try to clear proposals from the shortlist quickly and we review it every 3 months
or so to see whether we are in a position to move an idea forward or to reject it. If
you ever need to know about the progress of a shortlisted idea, do get in touch.
Should you ever wish to withdraw an idea from the shortlist, just let us know.
Pilot
We need to hear a pilot before committing ourselves. You should discuss this with
the commissioning editor before doing further work.
Conditional commission
Final acceptance of all ideas is conditional on the following issues. Radio 4 is not
responsible for any costs incurred prior to the full agreement.
o Price and rights
Each conditional commission will be made with a fixed price offer that has been
judged as value for money by the Commissioning and Finance and Business
Affairs teams. It is intended that most will be at the published guide but we
reserve the right to propose an alternative price if we believe it appropriate. If our
price is accepted by you in writing there will be no need to submit a detailed
budget. Contracts will be issued immediately to independent suppliers.
If, however, you wish to challenge the offer made, a detailed budget in Proteus
will be requested and scrutinised by our Finance and Business Affairs team with
the aim of reaching agreement.
Conditional acceptances may be withdrawn if agreement on price is not reached
within a reasonable period.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/
SUPPORTING MATERIALS
These must be delivered by 1700 on the day of the commissioning round deadline.
A complete inventory of materials supplied must be included. See below.
o Submit audio and video via an online file-sharing service. Make clear which
proposal it is for. Audio must be in mp3. Always identify which offer it is for
within the filename.
o Material related to comedy briefs should be sent to tamsin.green@bbc.co.uk
o Material related to factual briefs should be sent to shauna.todd@bbc.co.uk
o Unpublished written material should not be put in Proteus. Send it by email to
one of the addresses above. Make it clear which offer it is for.
o Physical supporting material (published books, DVDs etc) must be delivered to:
Radio 4 Commissioning Assistants
Room 4028 Broadcasting House
London W1A 1AA
o Label each item with your name, department or company, the title and the
commissioning brief number of the proposal.
o The package should be accompanied by a complete list of supporting materials,
using the form below.
o Indicate in the long synopsis that you are supplying supporting materials.
With the exception of published books and DVDs, we cannot return supporting
materials to you.
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SUPPLIER
DEPARTMENT /
COMPANY
COMMISSIONING
BRIEF NUMBER
TITLE
SUPPORTING MATERIALS
SIGNATURE
CONTACT NAME ..
EMAIL ..
MOBILE.............................................................................
TEL ...
DATE.
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Reach: One in five adults listen to Radio 4 each week, or 21% of the population. At
11.2m each week, this is Radio 4s highest record ever beating its previous record
by 227K listeners (Q2 2013, which saw 10.98m tune in).
Hours: Radio 4 continues to have a very loyal audience, tuning in for over 11 hours
per week. Based on the most recent RAJAR data (Q4 2013) the average Radio 4
listener tunes in for 11 hours and 30 minutes each week. In total that makes 129m
hours every week.
Share: Share takes all the minutes listened to any radio, and works out what
proportion of this Radio 4 makes up. According to the latest RAJAR results, Radio 4s
share of listening is 12.5% - level with where it has been in previous years. This
equates to one in every eight minutes of radio consumed.
Genre: News attracts the largest number of listeners, at 9.6m per week according to
RAJAR. Drama attracts a strong 7.0m average listeners a week, and comedy
reaches 5.5m.
Online: Radio 4 sees almost 1 million unique browsers to its site each month.
December 2013 saw 902K UBs two in five of these coming from mobile or tablet.
We also saw 16.4m iPlayer requests for Radio 4 programmes, and a further 13.3m
podcasts downloaded providing Radio 4 with a huge digital footprint.
The station continues to have a fairly balanced audience in terms of gender (51% male /
49% female) however, our female listeners typically tune in for longer than our male
listeners (13:18 vs. 09:47). The average age of the Radio 4 listener is 55yrs old. The station
also continues to have an upmarket bias 75% of those tuning in fall into the ABC1
demographic.
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For any questions about the Radio 4 audience, please contact Elizabeth Lane,
Research Manager for Radio 4 and 4 Extra: Elizabeth.lane@bbc.co.uk
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COMMISSIONING BRIEFS
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When you get a proposal commissioned it is the start of a long process. The idea
may have to be piloted; writers will need to be coaxed and supported to write a
minimum of four scripts. Casting for a scripted comedy or a stand up show means
your knowledge of performers and their skills has to be superb. You then need to be
able to direct and produce the programme a stand up can need as much
production to help make the move from comedy club to radio as an actor reading
someone elses lines.
Therefore, to stand a chance of being successful, your company or
department will need to be able to demonstrate substantial and considerable
experience in radio comedy and/or television comedy.
Companies and departments with no radio experience who are invited to a pre-offers
meeting will be asked to name the experienced radio producer(s) who will work with
them on developing and then producing the programme if it is commissioned.
Work online is useful and interesting but will not be enough to demonstrate you can
provide broadcast quality programmes that meet the editorial, talent development,
compliance and technical levels we require.
Diversity
We are determined to continue broadcasting comedy that reflects the rich diversity of
modern Britain. So, please consider how your programme can help us achieve that.
Celebrity-guest shows
We are not looking for any new ones.
We have many shows across the network that revolve around a different celebrity
guest appearing or being interviewed in each programme; think of established
programmes such as Desert Island Discs, Great Lives, A Good Read, With Great
Pleasure and Ive Never Seen Star Wars and newer titles such as One to One and
My Teenage Diary.
Series or serials?
In a series, programmes can, to a greater or lesser extent, be placed in any order
and do not need a detailed explanation each week to explain what has happened so
far. Serials do. We want series. We do not want serials.
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Choice of talent
Unless you are building a show around a named individual you are not expected to
approach performers at the pre-offers or final offers stage.
It is a waste of time and can cause embarrassment if the programme is not
commissioned. We also know that by the time a commissioned programme is ready
to be recorded the chance of said individual still being available is negligible.
Audience or non-audience?
This is key. Please tell us at pre-offers if this is or is not an audience show.
And we will discuss this further if you are invited to a pre-offers meeting.
Very rarely is it an either/or. The writing, the speed of the jokes, the structure, the
nuance of performance you may want to achieve, the importance of acoustic variety
all need to be taken into consideration when determining what is best for the show
and the listeners.
Television ideas
It is perfectly ok to offer ideas that have been turned down by television. But do tell
us.
It is perfectly ok to offer ideas that have been turned down by another radio station.
Again, tell us.
AT PRE-OFFERS MEETINGS
If your offer gets through the initial pre-offers stage we will meet to discuss the idea
in more depth and in particular focus on the following:
Your writer
Are they ready?
Have you actually seen samples of their radio writing?
If the writer has not written for radio before and you have not ready anything they
have written for radio how do you know they can write for Radio 4?
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With your final offer you will need to submit either a full draft script or substantial
scenes from the series specifically written for radio. Plus storylines for following
episodes, plus character descriptions.
The need for a full script or sample scenes will differ from offer to offer and writer to
writer. We will discuss this when we meet at pre offers.
So, to repeat, are they, are you, ready to offer? If you are not wait till the next round.
Comedy is commissioned twice a year.
Talent
If you offer is built around named key talent, are you sure they want to work with
you?
Have you asked them or their agent/management who else they are talking to?
It is not the end of the world if talent offer different ideas through different suppliers
but make sure it is not the same idea.
Rights and permissions
It is pointless to clear rights ahead of a commission. This wastes your time and
money. It is not the end of the world if an offer falls over later because rights are not
available.
However, where we know there are historical difficulties with the rights holders, we
may ask you to clear them. We will agree this at the pre-offers meeting.
Preparing for the final offer
We will discuss how to write the final offer to make the proposition as clear and
attractive as possible!
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Choice of talent
Unless you are building a show round a named individual you are not expected to
approach performers at pre-offers or final offers stage.
But, for final offers, indicative names are needed so that we can judge the tone or
attitude of the programme. Please consider these carefully and ensure that there is a
spread of talent across your offers. We take diversity seriously. Too many of the
same names are still cropping up again and again, most of whom are on the network
already.
Offers for returning series
When offering these you must include your critical thoughts on the series to date
and how you might develop the show further.
Do not worry about including press cuttings we will provide those.
Length of the offer
The final offer must not be longer than two sides of A4 apart from the Proteus front
business page.
Supporting material
This is only required for final offers. See section 2. Apart from published books
and commercially published DVDs, all work must be sent electronically.
Examples of Presenters and Talent
If they have work online (YouTube, blogs, podcasts etc) please include a link in your
offer rather than sending in downloads etc.
Delivery of Supporting Written Material
Written material (e.g. CVs, sample dialogue or scripts) should not be put on Proteus.
It must be sent by email to tamsin.green@bbc.co.uk. Please identify which offer it
is for within the filename.
Delivery of Supporting Audio and Video
Submit via an online file-sharing service to tamsin.green@bbc.co.uk. Audio must
be .mp3 format. Please identify which offer it is for within the filename. You do
not need to include audio for returning series as we already have access to the
programmes.
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and / or:
Series for recommission. This applies to all series due to be broadcast before
the end of September 2014.
and / or:
Topical comedy
Comedy crime
Serials
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Commissioning Editor:
Caroline Raphael
Commissioning Assistant: Tamsin Green
Duration: 28
Transmission period: April 2015 October 2015
Guide price: 11,300
Estimated number of programmes available for open competition (i.e. not
guaranteed to any supplier): We will put two or three new titles into development
only, alongside returning series.
This is because of the high number of returning series in this slot (see General
Notes on Comedy & Entertainment above).
This slot provides a variety of energetic as live entertainment formats performed and
written by the best of the experienced and newly established talent for early-evening
listeners, many of whom have arrived home from work or are still travelling. It is also a
recognised entry point for certain listeners new to the network and is popular with
replenishers - the 35 to 54 year olds - as they are available to listen at this time of day.
This is not the slot to test the boundaries of taste or form.
This round the slot is only open for the following submissions:
Programmes from those departments with an output guarantee.
and / or:
Series for recommission. This applies to all series due to be broadcast before the
end of September 2015.
and / or:
Scripted comedy to be recorded in front of an audience. We will only put a very
small number of such ideas into development each round.
and / or
Single programmes featuring major comedy talent who cannot commit to a full
four or six-part run.
Diversity
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We are determined to continue broadcasting comedy that reflects the rich diversity of
modern Britain. So, please consider how your programme can help us achieve that.
What we are not looking for:
Quizzes these are placed at 1330 but we are not currently looking for new titles.
Topical and satirical shows - we already have The Now Show and The News
Quiz at 1830.
Interview / chat show formats. We have several here and across the network all
vying for very similar guests.
Serials
Stand Up Shows
Impressionists
Improvised shows
Panel Shows
Audiences
Programmes at 1830 will be recorded with an audience. The act of sharing laughter with
the studio audience enriches and energises the listening experience at this busy time of
the evening.
You may hear programmes broadcast at 1830 without an audience; these will almost
exclusively be repeats from other slots.
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This round the slot is only open for the following submissions:
Programmes from those departments with an output guarantee.
and / or:
Series for recommission. This applies to all series due to be broadcast before the
end of September 2015.
and / or:
Surprising ideas of high imagination and inventiveness that really refresh the
schedule at this time of day. We will put two or three such ideas only into
development.
Diversity
We are determined to continue broadcasting comedy that reflects the rich diversity of
modern Britain. So, please consider how your programme can help us achieve that.
We are not looking for:
Panel Shows
Serials
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1130 Comedy
Believe It
Comedy Drama
Richard Wilson's "Radiography" returning for a third
series. Written by Jon Canter.
Conversation
Two of Test Match Special's finest bastions have
joined forces for a side-splitting insight into 40 years of
broadcasting.
Boswell's Lives
Scripted Comedy
Boswell does for other legends what he did for Dr.
Johnson. Written by Jon Canter.
Scripted Comedy
A further series about Clare Barker, the Social Worker
with a dedicated social conscience - unless it's
inconvenient.
Cleaning Up
Scripted Comedy
We spend the night with a team of night cleaners who
work in a Manchester office block. Written by Ian
Kershaw.
Stand Up
Four extraordinary true life stories. Each tale sees
Deborah roll the dice with her own life.
Hobby Bobbies
Scripted Comedy
Our local community support officers are back on their
beat. Written by Dave Lamb.
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On The Rocks
Scripted Comedy
Continuing the adventures of the inhabitants of pre-war
Scilly Isles St. Martin's. It's 1938 and the threat of war
is looming large. Written by Christopher William Hill.
Shush!
Scripted Comedy
They are closing libraries throughout the land but,
somehow, this one is surviving. What is the secret of
its success? Written by Morwenna Banks and
Rebecca Front.
So On & So Forth
Sketch Comedy
Gentlemen of sketch 'So On & So Forth' present a live
audience sketch show.
Start/Stop
Scripted Comedy
Do you really want to know what your other half is
thinking? The sometimes dark inner and outer view of
marriage and relationships. Written by Jack Docherty.
The Architects
Scripted Comedy
A comedy series set in a struggling architects' practice
based in London. Written by Jim Poyser and Neil
Griffiths.
1830 Comedy
Chain Reaction
Conversation
A chain of interviews where one week's interviewee
becomes the next week's interviewer.
Best Behaviour
Panel Show
Holly Walsh has impeccable manners. Not so sure about
her guests.
Panel Show
Chairperson Ed Byrne (Irish) with Hal Cruttenden (English)
and Henning Wehn (German) are joined by the cream of
international comedians to sort it out once and for all.
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Improvisation
The chat show where our 'guests' have no idea what they
are going to be asked next. Hosted by Justin Edwards.
Dilemma
Panel Show
Sue Perkins presents the next series of the show that gets
to the heart of modern morality,
Panel Show
David Baddiel challenges his guests to not make us laugh.
Heresy
Panel Show
Challenging the unthinkable.
Scripted Comedy
The Idiot Bastard Band (Ade Edmundson, Neil Innes,
Rowland Rivron and Phill Jupitus) are on tour and may be
coming to a town near you. Hopefully not. Written by the
band with Mark Evans.
Stand Up
Serving policeman and comic Alfie Moore challenges his
audience to be police officers for one night as he takes
them through a real-life scenario and asks them what
they'd have done in his shoes.
Jocelyn
Sketch Show
Jocelyn Jee Esien stars in her own audience sketch show,
presented and linked by her playing herself and full of new
characters with a couple of returning favourites.
Just a Minute
Mark Steel's In Town
Stand Up
A further series of the award winning show that travels
around the country, researching the history, heritage and
culture of six towns that have nothing in common but their
uniqueness.
Stand Up
More stories and diaries from the keyboard of one of
America's finest satirists.
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Mooney's Law
Scripted Comedy
A small corner of the British Armytucked away in an
office, somewhere. Written by Chris Martin and Geoff
Northcott.
My Teenage Diaries
Conversation
Rufus Hound wants you to share your teenage diaries with
him and the entire Radio 4 audience!
Stand Up
Paul Sinha casts his fearsome eye over another aspect of
contemporary life.
Reluctant Persuaders
Scripted Comedy
Can this group of advertising gurus persuade us to buy
anything? Written by Robert Frimston and Edward Rowett.
Scripted Comedy
Private detectives for hire. Written by Max Olesker and
Ivan Gonzalez.
Panel Show
Are our panellists passing lies off as truths?
Stand Up
Enjoy a bit of legal phone hacking as we listen into a
second series of Tom Wrigglesworth's weekly calls home
to his parents in Sheffield.
Scripted Comedy
Young Stephen K Amos is still growing up in the 1980s.
Written by Jonathan Harvey and Stephen K Amos.
Sketch Comedy
Marcus Brigstocke returns to tell us what he thinks about
life today using a finely tuned combination of stand up and
sketches.
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Sketch Comedy
The audience sketch show set a minimum of 500 years
from now.
Stand Up
Confounding expectations and preconceptions,
Andrew O'Neill uses his own personal experience he
examines sexual and gender identity, what they are
and how we get them.
Sketch Comedy
Agony Aunt letters from Ernest Hemingway, Butlins
travel reviews from Cormac McCarthy a political
manifesto by the young JK Rowling and a car manual
written by Dan Brown....a fascinating glimpse into the
embryonic development of our best-loved literary
voices. Written by Ian Leslie.
Scripted Comedy
Richard is a poet who writes rhymes for greetings
cards, whose constant worrying and vivid imagination
means he over-thinks everything leaving him incapable
of making the right choice.
Sketch Comedy
Monsters lurk everywhere in the most surprising
places.
Stand Up
A wise lollop through the underlying realities of our
universe from the brain squad that is - Festival Of The
Spoken Nerd
Stand Up
An irreverent look at how the language of art has
developed over the past 600 years.
Hell Is A City
Drama
Cult classic of British crime fiction, set in Manchester in
the 1950s.
Scripted Comedy
Combining fantastical internal monologues, and his
painful conversations with others, a tiny glimpse into
the life of a mundane man.
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Stand Up
Working class Londoner, John Moloney, would like to
share with the listeners his finely nuanced observations
of life.
Scripted Comedy
Character comedy series developed from Croft &
Pearce's Suicidal Ladies sketches. Written by Hannah
Croft and Fiona Pearce.
Liam Williams
Stand Up
A new show for Radio from the pen of storyteller and
comedian Liam Williams.
Life of Barry
Scripted Comedy
Barry from Watford is trying to write his life story.
Written by Alex Lowe.
Muju
Sketch Comedy
The world's greatest (indeed the world's only) MuslimJewish comedy sketch group.
Nurse
Scripted Comedy
They call them Service Users, our Nurse prefers to call
them her patients. Join our Community Psychiatric
Nurse on her sometimes sad and bewildering but
mostly funny daily rounds. Written by Paul Whitehouse
and Dave Cummings.
Seekers
Scripted Comedy
Down at the job centre Stuart and his mates are still
waiting for a job. Written by Stuart Burge.
Small Scenes
Sketch Show
Daniel Rigby, Sara Pascoe, Mike Wozniak and Henry
Paker take us into the nooks and crannies of
contemporary Britain.
Scripted Comedy
Tim Key's with sometimes baleful support from Tom
Basden attempts to deliver his anarchic 'poetry'
programme.
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Sunday Comedy
The Rest is History
Panel Show
The time has come, Frank Skinner said, to talk of
many things: of shoes - and ships - and sealing wax of cabbages - and Kings. A new panel show about
history.
Panel Show
James Walton challenges both the knowledge and the
writing skills of his literary guests.
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4.2
ARCHIVE ON 4
Reference number: 47088
Commissioning Editor:
Mohit Bakaya
Commissioning Assistant: Shauna Todd
Eligibility: We invite proposals from BBC departments and independent production
companies who can clearly demonstrate considerable experience in radio or TV
documentary production at both producer and executive producer level.
If you have not previously made programmes for Radio 4, you should include your
production track record at the end of the long synopsis in your final offer.
Slot: Saturday, 2002
Duration: 57
Transmission period: April 2015 March 2016
Guide price: 8,000
Estimated number of programmes available for open competition: 23
EDITORIAL GUIDE
Archive on 4 has become an important part of the Radio 4 schedule. It has evolved
into a classy storytelling hour using the archive, rather than a simple showcase for
archive material. We are looking for ideas that maintain the quality and range of
subjects in this Saturday night slot.
Story is key here. The best Archives on 4 deploy analysis, argument, wit,
revisionism, new interviews and authorship along with compelling archive material.
Here are some pointers that may prove helpful when putting your offer (and
programme) together:
This strand should include a wide variety of ideas: individual life stories or
biographies, cultural, scientific, social, political, sporting or entertainment
history.
33
The authority, charisma and energy of the presenter are all vital to the
success of programmes in this slot. The presenter needs to actively engage
with the archive and do more than simply link clip A to clip B.
One of the challenges for those making programmes in the Archive on 4 slot
is to tell stories that can sustain the hour. Proposals should set out how the
idea justifies a 57 minute origination, has enough twists and turns to keep the
listener engaged.
Dont forget this goes out on Saturday night . Programmes should seek to
entertain and engage, as well as inform and educate.
Programmes can include new interviews, where appropriate, but the slot is
not funded or designed to feature a large amount of new material. You are
also allowed out of the studio on occasion!
Please think hard about whether your idea is really an Archive on 4. Too
many offers come in where the bulk of archive available is written or
where the fact that some new archive has come to light becomes the
sole reason to submit to this slot. Offers should demonstrate why the
story is best told through audio archive.
Archive sources beyond the BBCs have worked well. Indeed, some of these
are better suited to providing longer inserts than much of the BBC News
material. But beware offering programmes simply because the archive has
become available.
There will always be a place for simpler programmes that just make use of
fantastic archive without much else besides, but the archive needs to be just
that fantastic!
In the past, we have had too many anniversary pegged programmes that
move gently, but rather predictably, through their story, offering few new
insights. If you are submitting an anniversary pegged proposal do say how
you might introduce surprise and challenge expectations.
When choosing the presenter do think carefully about how his/her voice would
contrast with the type of archive that will dominate the hour.
Be mindful of the cumulative effect of an hour of very old archiveit can make
listening hard work!
We could do with more women presenters in this slot. And more ethnic
diversity too.
Please indicate whether the presenter has been involved in the development
of the proposal.
34
Downloads
Radio 4 may wish to include programmes from this slot in one of its downloads. With
your agreement, the Radio 4 Interactive team would publish the download from the
supplied programme. Radio 4 will meet any additional clearance costs attributable to
the download. When we ask for your agreement to the download, we'll also ask for
an estimate of clearance costs to enable us to decide whether it is practical to
proceed.
35
PROPOSAL TO INCLUDE
Clear details of audio archive available and whether access has been secured
Treatment
36
2002
1330
1602
Duration: 28
Transmission period: April 2015 March 2016
Guide price: 8,300
Estimated number of programmes available for open competition: 33
EDITORIAL GUIDE
This is the 28 politics, history, current/social affairs documentary slot.
This is a place for important political and current affairs stories, emerging
trends, and big or revisionist history that is relevant to today. The Specialist
Factual Documentary should explore the issues and stories that will help the Radio 4
audience understand better the world they inhabit. One of the important roles of this
slot is to provide context forming documentaries that complement the rest of the
schedule and News output.
The key to success here is pitching documentary ideas that go beyond what
Radio 4 does week in, week out through its strands and news sequences. We
cannot emphasise this point enough; it is the single biggest reason ideas do
not get through.
Sometimes this slot is used to tell quite complicated stories. Where the
subject matter is dense, proposals should suggest ways in which actuality and
texture will be used to give the audience time to absorb and reflect. Too often
evening features go in assuming too great a level of background knowledge
and then travel at a pace that is unrealistic for an audience that is often doing
other things whilst listening. Sometimes, less is more.
More polemic and thesis driven programmes and series would be welcome in
this slot.
Beware anniversary pegs. They are rarely sufficient in their own right.
Most importantly, think why this story should be told in long form
documentary and would not be best covered as an item or series of
items on a regular Radio 4 strand. Listen to the other strands that sit in
the evening like Analysis, In Business, Crossing Continents, File on
Four and the Report.
Where your story is very specifically located please explain how you will make
documentary of interest to a national audience.
We are keen to encourage more women and people from ethnic communities
as presenters in this slot.
Where the series is big enough we may want to explore the possibility of a
book spin off. However, where there is a pre-existing book deal involved, this
MUST be flagged up in the proposal.
Radio 4 reserves the right to commission some of the individual ideas and
schedule these under an umbrella with work from other suppliers.
Downloads
38
Radio 4 may wish to include programmes from this slot in one of its downloads. With
your agreement, the Radio 4 Interactive team would publish the download from the
supplied programme. Radio 4 will meet any additional clearance costs attributable to
the download. When we ask for your agreement to the download, we'll also ask for
an estimate of clearance costs to enable us to decide whether it is practical to
proceed.
SOME PROGRAMMES COMMISSIONED IN THE LAST ROUND
Please check earlier Commissioning Guidelines for previous commissions.
Can Peter Mandelson
Save the
Republicans?
'Good News is No
News'
Look What They Did
to My Schlong, Ma!
Walking Round in
Circles
Thatcher's Mad Monk
or True Prophet?
Burying Lenin
Black Britain
What could today Republicans learn from the 1980s struggle in the
Labour Party?
The deep (and slowly growing) popular frustration with the
overwhelming negativity of the news agenda
The ancient practice of male circumcision has recently pitted
Western liberal rationalism against unlikely allies This explores the
ties that bind and the fault lines of liberal anxiety.
Acclaimed Northern Ireland poet Nick Laird returns home to consider
the culture of marching.
In the comment after Baroness Thatcher's death, few mentions were
made of Sir Keith Joseph - yet he made Thatcher's revolution
possible.
With increasing calls for Lenin's burial, Daniel Sandford explores
what lies behind the debate. Should Russia's revolutionary hero
finally be put to rest along with his ideas?
Gary Younge meets people from African and Caribbean
backgrounds, their friends and family, and explores what it's like to
be young, British and black today.
In a year that could see Scottish Independence and the
fragmentation of the Eurozone, Professor Sir David Cannadine
presents provocative new thinking about the nation state.
Peter Hitchens re-examines the relationship between the USA and
UK.
A documentary from Julie Fernandez. Drawing on her own
experience, she explores an agonising decision: whether or not to
have children, if it means passing on disabilities?
Should policymakers try harder to escape the rhetoric of "tough" or
simplistic views of the causes of crime?
Misha Glenny continues the successful format with this history of
Brazil.
Investigates the troubling concerns about how hospitals often
function poorly at night and at weekends
This programme explores Machiavellis lesser known role as the
bridge between ancient Rome's republic, the renaissance city-state
of Florence and republicanism today.
Comedian and author Jane Bussmann is on a quest to discredit the
cult of authenticity.
Tim Samuels presents a social history of the password as we
prepare for its demise and ask what can protect us online?
What is the reality of the emigration of skilled people? Research
39
Drain
indicates that the UK has benefitted from a "brain gain" in the last
decade, as young academics have returned here from abroad.
PROPOSALS TO INCLUDE
Synopsis of story
40
SCIENCE DOCUMENTARY
Reference number: 47051
Commissioning Editor:
Mohit Bakaya
Commissioning Assistant: Shauna Todd
Eligibility: We invite proposals from BBC departments and independent production
companies who can clearly demonstrate considerable experience in radio or TV
documentary production, preferably with a track record in science, at both producer
and executive producer level.
Where your offer is journalistic, we expect a proven track record at both producer
and executive producer level.
If you have not previously made programmes for Radio 4, you should include your
production track record at the end of the long synopsis in your final offer.
Slot: Tuesday/Wednesday 2102
Duration: 28
Transmission period: April 2015 March 2016
Guide price: 8,100
Estimated number of programmes available to open competition: 10
EDITORIAL GUIDE
Scientific discovery and technological innovation are changing our world at a rapid
pace, and this is a place to make programmes that help our audience understand
how these changes will affect their lives.
These will mostly be built feature/documentary-style programmes which will reveal
areas of discovery, new developments or issues in science. However, there is also
opportunity for well told history of science here, especially when the past shines a
light on contemporary events.
Please note we also have topical weekly magazine strand Inside Science, as well as
the feature series Frontiers, which explores big ideas and developments in science.
Also, please note that there have been two new additions to Radio 4s science
portfolio The Life Scientific and Inside Health.
41
We will also consider some natural history material here - features which reflect the
inter-relationship between the animal kingdom and the environment as a whole. But
please be mindful of the Natural History Units output on Radio 4.
We understand that, at this stage, it is harder to think about treatment than content,
but please be aware that offers that clearly explain how they will use location,
actuality and other techniques to liven up the airwaves in the evening, will be warmly
received. Clearly, some stories are best told in a more studio based, talking heads
format, but we are keen to make the evening schedule more lively and engaging.
Some further guidance.
Think carefully about what Radio 4 already does in this area and what science
might be covered by returning strands. Too many offers are simply ideas
that would sit best as a 7 minute item in a magazine programme.
The history of science can work well here, especially revisionist history
and/or sometimes where the story involves a compelling human
dimension.
Please take special care when writing your proposal to show how you will
make the story come alive for the (non-scientist) audience at home; this is of
particular importance when dealing with the non-human sciences.
We should not shy away from complex science here, but need to continue to
work on ways of making this accessible (proposals should address this).
Whilst ideas about health and the environment are welcome here, producers
should also bear in mind that Tuesday at 2102 is dedicated to health and
Costing the Earth runs in this slot for half the year.
We are keen to encourage more women and people from ethnic communities
as presenters in this slot.
Please indicate whether the presenter has been involved in the development
of the proposal.
Radio 4 reserves the right to commission some of the individual ideas and
schedule these under an umbrella with work from other suppliers.
Downloads
Radio 4 may wish to include programmes from this slot in one of its downloads. With
your agreement, the Radio 4 Interactive team would publish the download from the
supplied programme. Radio 4 will meet any additional clearance costs attributable to
the download. When we ask for your agreement to the download, we'll also ask for
an estimate of clearance costs to enable us to decide whether it is practical to
proceed.
42
PROPOSAL TO INCLUDE
Series ideas should give an indication of what each edition might include.
43
TUESDAY DOCUMENTARY
Reference number: 47038
Commissioning Editor:
Mohit Bakaya
Commissioning Assistant: Shauna Todd
Eligibility: We invite proposals from BBC departments and independent production
companies who can clearly demonstrate considerable experience in radio or TV
documentary production at both producer and executive producer level.
We expect a proven track record in the relevant sphere of journalism at both
producer and executive producer level. If your proposal involves journalism in
foreign countries we expect to see experience of such work in countries relevant to
your offer. Foreign travel to countries where conflict or other factors incur high risk
will require proof of accredited hostile environment training. Radio 4 will not be able
to pay for such training.
If you have not previously made programmes for Radio 4, you should include your
production track record at the end of the long synopsis in your final offer.
Slot: Tuesday, 2002
Duration: 37
Transmission period: April 2015 March 2016
Guide price: 10,200
Estimated number of programmes available to open competition: 11
EDITORIAL GUIDE
These programmes run in the File on 4 break. In the past this has been the place
for one-off investigative documentaries covering a large range of subjects: arts,
religion, politics, social affairs, science, health, sport and international stories.
The key to this slot is depth and ambition. This is a place for long term investigations,
big stories of national importance, ground breaking journalism. Its where we run our
exclusive access documentaries. It is also where we will run heavyweight
intellectual projects of enquiry and the biggest foreign stories. In short, this is a slot
that is all about impact.
44
Whats your story, whats your angle? It is not enough to identify an area of
interest. Too many proposals fail to clearly set out a specific line of enquiry
and are too general in their approach.
If you are piching an access doc, please consider the editorial challenges
proximity might throw up and address how you will meet them. Also, access
needs to have a purpose, not just because you can.
File on 4 sits in this slot for the majority of the year. Think hard about why your
documentary idea wouldnt be the kind of story that the File on 4 team would
get to in the usual course of events.
We understand that it might not be possible to supply all the data for an
investigation at the proposal stage, but the proposal should indicate the
approach taken and the evidence so far that further work can be justified.
This is also a place to run stories that need more space than a 28 doc will
allow but need to be housed in a single narrative rather than being split into a
series.
We are keen to encourage more women and people from ethnic communities
as presenters in this slot.
Sometimes this slot is used to tell quite complicated stories. Where the
subject matter is dense, proposals should suggest ways in which actuality and
texture will be used to give the audience time to digest and reflect. Too often
evening features can sound relentless, giving the listener little chance to catch
their breath and absorb all the fascinating things they are being told.
Please indicate whether the presenter has been involved in the development
of the proposal.
Downloads
Radio 4 may wish to include programmes from this slot in one of its downloads. With
your agreement, the Radio 4 Interactive team would publish the download from the
supplied programme. Radio 4 will meet any additional clearance costs attributable to
the download. When we ask for your agreement to the download, we'll also ask for
an estimate of clearance costs to enable us to decide whether it is practical to
proceed.
45
Adam Smith sidesteps the war over the history curriculum to find out how
children learn the subject: a question oddly absent from the debate.
Explores the nature of the relationship between businesses and the state
today and asks whether it has broken down in a struggle for survival.
Explores how recent work in evolutionary biology on self-deception and
reciprocal altruism feeds into understanding today's political controversies
and dilemmas.
Mukul Devichand meets people across Britain who have been called
"racist." Through these tales he gradually reveals the increasingly subtle
faultlines of racial animosity in a changing country.
It's 2030, and we imagine a future in which London has just won
independence from the rest of the UK.
The former environment minister Chris Mullin investigates what happens to
our waste and asks if there is a better way of dealing with it.
As Britain withdraws the last of its troops from Afghanistan, Radio 4
provides a definitive military assessment of the 13 year campaign
150 years on, James Naughtie examines the relevance of the Gettysburg
Address for today.
PROPOSAL TO INCLUDE
46
47
*********************************
We expect you to think about emotion as well as intellect as a means to creating
compelling, must listen audio that will appeal both to an audience not necessarily
well versed in speech radio as well as, of course, the traditional Radio 4 crowd.
There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware
of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the
cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the
soul. Arnold Bennett
*********************************
The digital presence and personality of this new programme should be developed as
an integral part of the new format, not as an add-on. To this end, you will need to
think about what the online experience of this show will be and be prepared to fund
this within the guide price (the size of the business should ensure some economies
of scale here). Visualization may be an important element here.
The challenge is to create a brand which can establish an online presence and
impact of its own, but also push the boundaries of radio storytelling.
*********************************
If you decide to pitch for this business, you should be prepared to submit a detailed
description of how your programme will sound, how it will challenge the established
factual radio model and who you would have at the helm (we remain open minded
about the nature of presentation, but it is likely that the successful offer will have
identified a regular presenter(s) for this slot). Your proposal should describe a format
that can work across the new strand.
We are hoping to do something more ambitious than simply recreate the American
radio models mentioned earlier.
Of course it will be hard to fully explain on paper, especially at pre-offers, but you
need to do enough to intrigue and excite us to take it to the conversation stage.
For your final submission it might be a good idea to take a specific subject and
explain in detail how your format will seek to explore the territory.
Once weve gone through the pitching and final offers stage, we will probably
shortlist the most innovative, exciting formats and then invite suppliers to discuss
further with a view to making a pilot.
We will take account of previous experience of relevant creative programme making
when deciding what to shortlist. We also reserve the right to commission more than
one supplier into this slot.
48
WEDNESDAY DEBATE
Reference number: 47040
Commissioning Editor:
Mohit Bakaya
Commissioning Assistant: Shauna Todd
Eligibility: We invite proposals from BBC departments and independent production
companies who can clearly demonstrate considerable experience in relevant types
of radio or TV production at both producer and executive producer level. If you have
not previously made programmes for Radio 4, you should include your production
track record at the end of the long synopsis in your final offer.
Slot: Wednesday, 2002 (repeat Saturday 2215)
Duration: 43
Transmission period: April 2015 - March 2016
Guide price: 8,000
Estimated number of programmes available for open competition: 10
EDITORIAL GUIDE
This slot is home to the Moral Maze for 26 weeks of the year. In the past, we have
commissioned debate formats, such as Decision Time, Leader Conference and
Bringing Up Britain in this slot.
Proposals should also be aware of the Any Questions? format on Friday evenings.
Some further guidance:
A debate at this time should lift the tone of the evening schedule and inject
some energy into proceedings.
49
This is a chance to develop fresh formats which could turn into returning
strands on the network.
Beware of overly mannered programmes ones where the format is laid out a
little too heavily.
Do keep diversity in mind. Too many of our debates in the past have underrepresented both women and people from ethnic communities.
Do think about how the programme might interact with listeners beyond the
usual Oxford Union or phone-in formats.
One-off debates are possible, though these need to command their place in
this slot in particular rather than being a special edition of a specialist of
magazine programme.
Where a format is proposed and it is not possible to look forward to issues for
2015/16, it would be useful to include an indication of the subjects that would
be covered were this series about to be transmitted.
Presenter
The right presenter who is able to hold the ring with authority and wit is
essential to these programmes.
Please indicate whether the presenter has been involved in the development
of the proposal.
The ability to create some kind of sense of event and manage a complex,
often audience-based format, is essential.
Parliament, the police, the Church; Britain's institutions are struggling. Let's
rethink them.
Leader
Conference
Pass the Turkey
Twizzlers
Would that Work
Here?
Six live, studio debates taking the form of newspaper morning leader
conferences.
Our food has never been safer, yet fear is rife. Columnist Lucy Kellaway
challenges the prevailing panic at a dinner party for her foodie friends.
Four studio debates on something another country does incredibly well, and we
don't in the UK. Could we import the model?
PROPOSAL TO INCLUDE
Format
4.3
1102 FEATURE
Reference number: 47011
Commissioning Editor:
Jane Ellison
Commissioning Assistant: Shauna Todd
Eligibility: We invite proposals from BBC departments and independent production
companies who can clearly demonstrate considerable experience in radio features
production at both producer and executive producer level.
Where your offer is journalistic, we will expect a proven track record in the relevant
sphere of journalism at both producer and executive producer level.
If your proposal involves journalism in foreign countries we expect to see experience
of such work in countries relevant to your offer. Foreign travel to countries where
conflict or other factors incur high risk will require proof of accredited hostile
environment training. Radio 4 will not be able to pay for such training.
If you have not previously made programmes for Radio 4, you should include your
production track record at the end of the long synopsis in your final offer.
Slot: Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday / Friday, 1102
Duration: 28
Transmission period: April 2015 March 2016
Guide price: 8,200
Estimated number of programmes available to open competition: 55
EDITORIAL GUIDE
This slot is the place where creative storytelling and journalistic insight combine to
document the world we live in. Audio has a unique role to play as discreet and
unobtrusive observer. It can be thought provoking and provocative, inquisitive and
insistent, witty and human. Increasingly listeners are expecting access to these
pieces to be time shifted thorough listen again and/or download. The wealth of what
51
Radio 4 has to offer at 11am needs to cut through more decisively in a multi-platform
world - finding the best way to ensure that occasional listeners and committed
specialists are more aware of the riches on offer.
These features, whether in series or in one-offs, should reflect a Radio 4 that is
modern, relevant and representative of the contemporary Britain we live in. Finding
fresh ways of reflecting the UK is a key priority. This of course should not discount
ideas that are international in ambition but that will feel relevant to the Radio 4
audience. Your ideas should be borne out of your own passions to both challenge
and inspire our audience's views on modern life and society.
There were so many good programmes over the last year, it is difficult to mention
them all. Lives in a Landscape has continued with high production values and a
wide range of stories. The Young Devolutionaries was an innovative attempt to use
an ambitious format and Bright Black and Looking for Work was recognised for
bringing different voices to the network. The Welsh M1 presented by Cerys
Matthews was beautifully crafted and Maths and Magic widely commented on.
Please check the list below to see the full range of programmes commissioned for
the coming year.
With reactive commissioning now established, we expect to buy about two thirds the
programmes available for 2015/16. Our aim is to get the big building blocks of the
slot in place (returning series and longer term projects) without compromising the
networks ability to react to a fast moving world.
Reactive commissioning last year included Cappucino Careers, Riding the Graphene
Wave and David Attenboroughs My Life in Sound to accompany Tweet of the Day.
In this round we will be looking for series that promise unique access, revelation and
original first-hand testimony. We are looking for a range of approaches to more vivid
feature making. Even at paragraph stage, your proposals should suggest how the
material lends itself to well-crafted and powerful storytelling. Finding the right range
of material to bring lightness of touch and thoughtful treatments or just ingenious
fun is also a challenge at 11am.
This slot is hugely popular with an average of around 800,000 listeners a day, and
always presents us with very tough choices. We are therefore continuing to invite
fewer pre-offers ideas to achieve a more realistic balance between proposals and
the volume of business available.
For that reason we are asking you to submit fewer offers with more development
relevant to the brief behind your best ideas.
Please do not enter more than 10 offers for 11.02 and for Saturday 10.30 slots
combined.
For BBC departments with an output guarantee, please limit your total offers
to twice the number remaining in your guarantee.
Do not exceed two written pages of A4.
52
Please note that this is not the place for arts features. Analytical current affairs
investigations and science documentaries will be more likely to succeed in the
evening. There is less scope for round-up programmes, anniversaries, well known
history and unquestioning nostalgia.
We will continue to look for one or two projects that we can broadcast as series
across the Monday/Tuesday/ Wednesday of the same week.
PROPOSAL TO INCLUDE
brief synopsis explaining focus of the idea and indicating style and treatment
proposals for series should give an idea of the breakdown into episodes
Downloads
Radio 4 may wish to include programmes from this slot in one of its podcasts. With
your agreement, the Radio 4 Interactive team would publish the download from the
supplied programme. Radio 4 will meet any additional clearance costs attributable to
the podcast. When we ask for your agreement to the podcast, we'll also ask for an
estimate of clearance costs to enable us to decide whether it is practical to proceed.
SOME PROGRAMMES COMMISSIONED/SHORTLISTED IN THE LAST ROUND
Title
Cold Water California
Tibet Remembered
Hot Gossip!
Negotiating the Maze
AL Kennedy: Holding
Hands
The Georgians:
Restraint, Revolution
and the Right
The Move
Midwives to Be
Short Synopsis
Amidst a crippling recession Ireland's surrounding oceans are starting to
stir. A road trip to consider the surprising boom in the nation's surfing
industry.
A portrait of pre-invasion Tibet built from archived memories of the
British servicemen, climbers and officials posted there in the years
before the Chinese arrived.
We explore gossip's cultural and scientific origins and the industry of
scandal that's built up over the last 200 years.
Daniel Libeskind, negotiates his way through the labyrinthine planning
and construction of a new 'Peace Building and Conflict Transformation
Centre' at the site of the former Maze prison outside Belfast.
The fierce mind of the writer AL Kennedy addresses what some might
consider to be the cosy, swoony act of holding hands.
Right-wing political historian Amanda Foreman marks 300 years since
the beginning of the Georgian period in 1714, in partnership with the
British Library and a major tie-in exhibition.
Those driven by a need for work are packing up their bags and moving
from North to South and South to North, crossing invisible barriers of
Britain.
It's harder now to secure a place on a midwifery degree course than to
get in to Oxbridge. Sarah Taylor follows an intake of midwifery students
throughout their first training year
53
A Gripping Yarn
The Paper
Commonwealth
The Birth of Love
The Culture War
A Needle Pulling
Thread
Vive les Empereurs!
Will the real Napoleon
Bonaparte step
forward?
On Language Location
COLD WAR
CONFIDENTIAL
The Bronze Age Man of
Jodrell Bank
Seven Round a
Cauldron
Meet The Wainwrights
The New Viking
Invasion
Bird-Mothers Of The
Border
FROM RUSSIA WITH
LOVE
Hail Marys and
Miniskirts
How To Hire A Master
The Singing Fish of
Batticaloa
World War Is A Mickey
Mouse Business
Keeping Mum
54
Tutor Proof
Lives in a Landscape
Common As Muck
With NASA laying off staff and shutting down facilities, an unlikely group
of Internet millionaires, engineers, pilots and thrill seekers is filling the
void and pushing at the final frontier.
Vittorio Sella is regarded by many as the greatest of all mountain
photographers. Andrea Sella goes in search of his ancestor and returns
to the mountains of his childhood to see how the icy world has changed
over the past 100 years.
Peter White delves into attempts to "tutor proof" a whole range of school
entrance exams. Why is it important and with over-zealous parents and
an army of private tutors is there any hope of succeeding?
Alan Dein and selected guest presenters explore documentary stories
that reflect the often surprising reality of living in Britain today.
He is set to wed the 'Quality Street' heiress and yet is, by his own
admission, "as common as muck." Professor Green, compares
backgrounds - his and hers - through his lyrics and life
Quentin Cooper tells the story of the unlikely connection between
English Botanist Dr Kathleen Drew Baker and the booming worldwide
Sushi industry.
Steve Carver spends a week working as a chimney sweep - a recessionbusting business which is booming thanks to the rise in fuel prices, and
the growing trend for log-burners.
A look at one of the saddest legacies of the 10 year war: the many
widows of British and Afghan security forces killed during the conflict.
80 year old artist Penelope Simpson invites her friends round to
decorate her coffin.
The writer Garret Carr charts the Irish border; a place of mythology and
controversy and creates a new digital map for the R4 audience.
Follows a handful of illiterate children on their journey towards being
able to read.
Germany has the oldest population in Europe and the lowest birth rate.
But is Germany ready for mass immigration?
There is a vast cadre of 'leaders', running through the private and public
sectors, who are overpaid and often underperforming. How come?
How you use landscape as a weapon?
Samira Ahmed tells the story of the Indian girls who avoid marriage by
playing football.
Explores the remarkable place of the Psalter in the history of faith and
society.
Every year, thousands of letters arrive in Verona, addressed to "Juliet".
Jolyon uncovers the real stories of love from all over the world.
This programme tells the story of Wittgenstein's earliest research
programme, and tests his theories.
The stories of visitors to Winston Churchill's final resting place - St
Martin's Church in Bladon, Oxfordshire
The undiscovered intrigues and dramas played out on three of Britain's
ring roads
Gillian Tett explores the politics behind the UK's start-up revolution.
Janet Anderson was Vice-Chamberlain of the Royal Household which
involves writing a daily message to Her Majesty on proceedings in
Parliament.
Inside the largest and oldest gender identity clinic in the world to explore
the issues around gender dysphoria.
Recent archaeological and DNA research is casting surprising new light
on the origins and meaning of the swastika
Fiona Shaw explores the pleasure and pain of waiting in this gloriously
sound rich feature.
This programme reverses the cliche of the gap year in Africa by seeing
life in the UK through the eyes of two Ghanaian students
55
In Defence of Pushy
Parents
Rise of the WILLIES
The Boneyard
Caribbean Domino Club
SANDHURST AND
THE SHEIKHS
Gambo and Franklin
A Family Without A
Child
The Civil Rights Act: 50
Years On, What's
Changed?
Little Chechnya on the
Steppes
Called Up and Sent
Down
A Tale of Two Rivers;
The Tigris and the
Euphrates
Nan-Kids
Mapping the Void
Setting out to defend a much maligned figure within society - the pushy
parent.
The London commuters who come from way outside zone 9.
Health and Safety has come to gravedigging.
Benjamin Zephaniah charts the stories of the Caribbean domino clubs of
London and his hometown Birmingham.
The link between Sandhurst and the current Arab leaders (and their
military chiefs of staff) is examined by Matthew Teller.
A maritime disaster nearly 200 years ago, still remains the greatest
mystery of the Arctic waters, but may be solved as we join a British crew
in a race across the icy seas.
The campaign trail to have the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire's
remains exhumed and returned to India.
Mothers and daughters shopping together - a fantasy of feminine
togetherness but also a real battleground.
Takes small personal stories that reflect a wider narrative from
contemporary Britain.
Unpicking the dark myth of Britain's industrial revolution using accounts
of everyday life written by working people
Jolyon Jenkins investigates those stories that start in everyday
experience but end up in the realms of the bizarre and fantastical.
The drama of two crucial meetings on different sides of the country
which will change lives and reveal truths about life in Britain today.
Following the work of The Department of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry at the Royal Free Hospital.
The history of one of the world's oldest and most important trades - Salt.
Eexploring the new - and fluctuating - relationships between British
Muslims, books, readerships and the written word.
Exploring the worldwide origins of human rights.
Laurence Okoye has been offered a key spot in one of America's top
football teams: his journey throwing light on the sport itself.
The story of a blind genius whose peculiar talents led to him being first
prosecuted and then employed by the phone company.
Talkative, eccentric and nearing retirement, African American parcel and
baggage attendant Linard deals with everything that the airlines don't.
Tim Pemberton reveals the neglected stories of some remarkable men.
Celebrateing ten years of the podcast, meeting those who paved the
way for its explosion in popularity.
We explore the practice of contemporary collecting.
Alex Salmond wants Scotland to draw an oil dividend from the North
Sea. One part of Scotland has been doing so for 35 years. What lessons
can be drawn from Shetland's experience?
Explores what it means to be childless, how society treats women who
aren't mothers and whether our centuries-old image of childlessness is
keeping up with the facts.
The Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination against racial, religious and
ethnic minorities and women. But in the 50 years since, how successful
has America been in eradicating discrimination?
The story of the Chechens exiled by Stalin in 1944.
The story of the Bevin Boys, a secret underground movement that
exposes hidden seams in the social fabric of our country.
Following the two rivers that have done so much to shape human
civilisation.
Quarter of a million children in the UK today are being brought up by
their grandparents.
Just hours after the earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, a group of
56
Fan Power
Indira's Children
Hack My Hearing
Essex, My Essex
Oligarchs of
Londongrad
Controlling Our Borders
57
SATURDAY FEATURE
Reference number: 47144
Commissioning Editor:
Jane Ellison
Commissioning Assistant: Shauna Todd
Eligibility: We invite proposals from BBC departments and independent production
companies who can clearly demonstrate considerable experience in radio features
production at both producer and executive producer level.
Where your offer is journalistic, we will expect a proven track record in the relevant
sphere of journalism at both producer and executive producer level.
If you have not previously made programmes for Radio 4, you should include your
production track record at the end of the long synopsis in your final offer.
Slot: Saturday, 1030
Duration: 28
Transmission period:
EDITORIAL GUIDE
The Saturday Feature is an invitation for bold, fun and surprising programmemaking. There is a heavy, though not exclusive, leaning towards popular culture and
high profile presentation.
With audience figures in the region of one million, the Saturday morning feature is a
showcase for accessible, creative story-telling. Programmes here need a good
narrative but at its most successful, the slot explores fresh perspectives on popular
culture in its broadest sense.
A lot of the programmes in this slot have been pegged. That may be inherent in the
way Saturday 10.30 has developed but we are keen to make sure we do not have
too many anniversaries marked here. They are better avoided unless it is a major
moment that can be approached with original thinking rather than a straight retelling
of the story.
58
Over the past year Will Gompertzs interviews with Zeitgeisters and Dont Log Off
both explored stories reflecting digital creativity in different ways. Sanjeev
Bhaskars Bollywood history also broadcast on Asian Network was well reviewed;
Jamie Cullums Piano Pilgrimage and Soweto Kinsch re-imagining his native
Birmingham were also highlights. Punt PI continued his unique investigations and
The Enfield Thunderbolt was an original story crafted with skill and a sense of fun.
Saturday morning can also be the place for big series that connect to events of
national significance popular reminiscence if you like - done in a thoughtful way for
the audience. The Cultural Front series part of World War One on the BBC is one
example Choristers of the Coronation, last year is another.
This is not a specialist arts strand (11.30 weekday is for more specific arts
commissioning).
With Jay Rayners Kitchen Cabinet to be scheduled for part of the year in this slot,
we are looking for a maximum of 25 programmes for Saturday morning with a good
range of voices and presenters.
Strong presentation is important. Please could you indicate clearly whether you have
signed up key talent or whether your idea for presentation is just indicative?
Please do not enter more than 10 offers for 11.02 and for Saturday 10.30 slots
combined.
For BBC departments with an output guarantee, please limit your total offers
to twice the number remaining in your guarantee.
Do not exceed two written pages of A4.
PROPOSAL TO INCLUDE
Short Synopsis
A cultural attempting to understand our contemporary conception of 'grace'.
As Yorkshire gets ready to host the world's greatest cycle race, the Tour De
France in 2014, we hear the remarkable story of how they won the bid.
Punt PI
D-Day Dames
59
Proudly grey-haired Mary Beard combs through the history, science and
significance of the hair-colour revolution.
Landmark series charts how the war transformed the arts, drawing on
newly-digitized archives and research to argue that these were years of
rapid cultural response, artistic innovation and technological change.
Sanjeev Bhaskar reveals the long and intimate relationship between
Bollywood and Britain, in a surprising and previously untold story.
Alan Dein returns to the world of Skype and Facebook capturing a series of
new and on-going dramas with people in every corner of the globe
Sandi Toksvig explores a growing industry offering training and advice for
"dealing with difficult people."
The culture and the people of the North East - and their love of budgerigars.
The extraordinary and largely unknown story of how Keynes persuaded the
British government to take paintings in lieu of France's war debt.
Marc Riley and some famous friends take off after something that, despite
their best efforts, they stand very little chance of finding.
Zeitgeisters
Series of profiles of the cultural entrepreneurs who are shaping our lives
and defining the very spirit of our age, often without us even knowing it.
Kate explores the parallels between the rebellious Romantic poets and
contemporary rappers, and examines the fusion of influences in today's
vibrant youth poetry scene.
Bandleader Ivy Bensons all-girl big band was the first in Berlin to entertain
the troops at the end of WW11. Melanie Chisholm celebrates Ivy's
achievements with the remaining members of that band.
Cycling's rock star, Bradley Wiggins is in Mallorca. He's joined by real rock
star, cycling enthusiast, Paul Heaton as he trains in Mallorca.
The Folklorist
Matthew Herbert explores the art of the music loop, and the million-dollar
industry around it; and asks whether loops are setting musicians free or
killing creativity.
Parish tours were the only way to get your record heard by the youth of
Ireland in the sixties. We navigate the winding roads of Ireland to discover
the memories of the tours and the music that was played
Folk singer Seth Lakeman travels to New York to meet the man regarded
as the world's leading expert on Folk music, 85 year old Izzy Young
Most histories of pop music stress the role of the creative individuals, but
Midge Ure argues that most of the innovative ideas have come from
technological advances.
60
NARRATIVE HISTORY
Reference number: 47169
Commissioning Editor:
Jane Ellison
Commissioning Assistant: Shauna Todd
Eligibility: We invite proposals from BBC departments and independent production
companies who can clearly demonstrate considerable experience in radio features
production at both producer and executive producer level.
If you have not previously made programmes for Radio 4, you should include your
production track record at the end of the long synopsis in your final offer.
Slot: Monday-Friday, 13.45
Duration: 14
Transmission period: February 2015 to March 2016
Guide price: 3,100 per episode
Estimated number of programmes available for open competition:
episodes
90
EDITORIAL GUIDE
Narrative history is now established as a major touchstone of Radio 4 broadcasting
attracting reviews and comment. Linda Colleys Acts of Union and Disunion
broadcast in January is the most recent example of the impact the slot can make.
These series are rooted in the unique ability of 15 audio vignettes to captivate and
inspire listeners; they focus on pieces of original source material and connect them
to a broader story.
It is the opportunity to construct chronological, thematic or other narratives from
these brilliant building blocks that makes this slot both challenging and exciting. The
combination of expertise and original authorship with dynamic and imaginative use of
audio offer huge potential for creative and intellectual ambition. These are also
programmes that work well as digital downloads, with short episodes building over a
number of weeks.
In this round we are asking for a small number of proposals for 2015 and some ideas
to develop for 2016. We are looking for original insights into the past across a wide
61
range of subjects - especially as new source material and new methods open up
new avenues of enquiry.
Over the past year, the slot has focused on three thought provoking and illuminating
aspects of UK history. As well as Acts of Union and Disunion Britains economic
history was dissected in Andrew Dilnots Britain in Numbers and Ann McElvoy
analysed British Conservatism last autumn.
Lucy Kellaway told the story of the office in an insightful and fresh way and Peter
Whites series Disability:A New History was packed with revelation and surprise. A
Cause for Carolling was a treat before Christmas and The Ideas that Make Us
presented by Bettany Hughes has captured the imagination.
Coming up will be Martin Sixsmiths History of Psychology and a major new series
on the British Navy for the summer of 2014. The coverage of WW 1 will also be
reflected in this slot with a series of essays Month of Madness and Voices of the
First World War, combining the sound archives of the BBC and IWM over 4 years.
We have also already commissioned proposals on Germany, India and we are
developing an idea about fiction. We also plan a partnership with Kew on the history
of plants.
Not all the series in this slot are of the same length; one or two will be broadcast over
4 to 6 weeks. Other commissions will be around 10 episodes. All narrative history
commissions of 10+ episodes will normally include a weekly 58 omnibus version.
To give the slot variety and to create changes of pace in the schedule over the year,
we also intersperse the history series with short runs of general features
commissioned under the 15 features brief - number 47006.
An offer in this slot should explain why you want to introduce or reintroduce the
Radio 4 audience to the history you are passionate about. Are there new things to
say about it? Is it in some way relevant to today?
We would expect to know who will write and present the series this is key to
understanding how the editorial authority of the project will be guaranteed and how it
will sound on air. We would like to know if you are using an adviser or consultant.
There are many ways of making these programmes giving them texture and drama.
You will need to establish why the 15 format is right for the idea. Atomising complex
subject matter into short episodes has implications for the narrative, the number of
characters or ideas you can introduce to the audience, the level of detail. There are
important structural and dramatic issues to consider. The end result elucidates and
informs without becoming reductive.
We would expect a rough indicative outline of how the series might work across a
number of weeks. We will also consider ideas for a substantial online presence with
interactivity especially for a proposal of scale. So please feel free to include this in
your thinking.
62
Short Synopsis
David Goldblatt journeys with the ball through a footballing history
of Brazil, the nation where life really is a pitch.
The story of three millennia of Indian civilisation through the
dramatic life stories of the children of the subcontinent both real
and fictional
audio recordings of those involved in the Great War in partnership
with IWM
A detailed analysis of the state of 'The Story', in world fiction
Sheila Dillon takes us through British eating
The Royal Navy has had a crucial role in the story of Britain. This is
its history, told with passion and new insights by Admiral Lord West.
Exploration of how the meaning of friendship has changed over the
last five hundred years.
The gripping story of a battle of two cities, London and Paris, and a
battle of two competing cultures in history
Lucy Kellaway traces the stories of the people who have been at
the sharp end of this new form of economic and social organization.
How our interpretation of dreams has changed from ancient
cultures, via Freud, to contemporary neuroscience.
A journey through the many mansions of our most powerful, but
least discussed, ideology.
As Scotland considers independence, our premier historian of
Britishness examines our 500 year history of unions and disunions.
A History of Germany
John McCarthy uses photographs taken, as a lens through which to
view the broader changes that have swept across the Middle East
The story of the rise of Scottish Nationalism from William Wallace to
the Independence Referendum of 2014.
A thirty-part history of psychology.
How the dollar became the currency of the United States a
process that took the nearly 80 years, and was no easy task.
Peter White presents a history of disability
63
All 15 FEATURES
Reference number: 47006
To avoid confusion, all ideas for 5 x 15 features programmes should be
entered here. If you have an idea that would be better scheduled on
consecutive days, please flag it up in your proposal.
Narrative History series of 10 episodes or more are entered under brief 47169.
Commissioning Editor:
Jane Ellison
Commissioning Assistant: Shauna Todd
Eligibility: We invite proposals from BBC departments and independent production
companies who can clearly demonstrate considerable experience in radio features
production at both producer and executive producer level.
Where your offer is journalistic, we will expect a proven track record in the relevant
sphere of journalism at both producer and executive producer level. If your proposal
involves journalism in foreign countries we expect to see experience of such work in
countries relevant to your offer. Foreign travel to countries where conflict or other
factors incur high risk will require proof of accredited hostile environment training.
Radio 4 will not be able to pay for such training.
If you have not previously made programmes for Radio 4, you should include your
production track record at the end of the long synopsis in your final offer.
Slot: Weekdays, 0930 and 1345
Duration: 14
Transmission period: April 2015 to March 2016
Guide price: 3,100
Estimated number of programmes available for open competition (across 0930
and 1345 weekdays): 50 episodes
EDITORIAL GUIDE
The fifteen minute feature can range from the funny, to the provocative to the
challenging - but always clear and coherent. Four or five episodes are preferred but
proposals for occasional single features are also welcome. These features need to
stand out as key building-blocks in the schedule.
64
The short features open up opportunities for audiences to engage with storytelling
with a different rhythm and pace, introducing some new ideas with new voices and
presenters. They can be very powerful, memorable and exquisitely crafted.
The 15 minute programmes are placed in high profile parts of the schedule, often
between well know Radio 4 strands.
They provide a bridge between The World at One and The Archers for
example when there are breaks in the narrative history commissions at 13.45.
Features that change theme and texture are particularly welcome. Please do
not offer too many history ideas so that we can vary the range of ideas at
lunchtime.
Getting On Air: the Female Pioneers and Publishing Lives felt very timely at
13.45 as the debates about women in broadcasting and the future of British
publishing respectively were topical. Europes Trouble Makers was a good
example of a more reactive series. The beautifully crafted Thames Crossings
provided a real contrast with texture and pace
With One to One now a key building block in the schedule, the 15 minute
programmes will also generally be broadcast for half the year at 9.30 am.
Essays and talks have not been commissioned here because of the reading
which follows at 0945. Over the past year, Roger Laws Wow How Did They
Do That and Pop Up Ideas originated at 9.30 am.
It is important that the features should be crafted to stand out whilst remaining
surprising and fresh. We are looking for mix and range as well as clever use of the
form. Ideas with a bit of a twist can work very well. With the long commissioning lead
times, ideas must stand the test of time and not date too quickly. Some slots will be
held back for reactive commissioning.
We expect to be able to repeat programmes between these slots and - when needed
- in other parts of the schedule. Just So Science, and 15 by 15 with Hardeep Singh
Kohli are examples of programmes that have spanned both slots.
To avoid confusion, all ideas for 5 x 15 features programmes should be
entered here. If you have an idea that would be better scheduled on
consecutive days, please flag it up in your proposal.
Narrative History series of 10 episodes or more are entered under brief 47169.
Proposal to include
brief synopsis explaining focus of the idea and indicating style and treatment
proposals for series should give an idea of the breakdown into episodes
Short Synopsis
An imaginative series of features exploring digital death through part factual
exploration, part fantastical gothic romance.
In its new gallery, Information Age, the Science Museum is using novel
approaches to bring technology to life, focusing on the ordinary people who
used, and adapted, communications technology in remarkable ways.
Jeanette Winterson explores of the story of Manchester.
Five award-winning photographers turn witness to major events.
Vivienne Parry returns with a new series of fascinating scientific tales woven
around more of Rudyard Kipling's memorable Just So Stories.
The power of networks in Britain and bringing together people who think they
don't 'do' networking.
Ruth Padel decodes 5 aspects of Lewis Carroll in the characters from "Alice in
Wonderland" to mark the 150th anniversary of the book's publication.
Solar scientist Dr Lucie Green plays her favourite sounds from space and
describes what these celestial noises reveal about our universe.
Five people with experience of failure talk about the role it played in their life
and how it is regarded in their sphere of expertise.
New Year's Day in Bali, is a day of complete silence. What sounds are left?
Local residents gather round a roving kitchen table to share anecdotes,
insights and ingredients all of which provide a local chef inspiration to design a
signature dish uniquely from, of and about their town.
The doyenne of agony aunts, writer and broadcaster Irma Kurtz talks to 5
agony aunts from around the world to hear the concerns of their homelands.
Lucy Mangan selects five different economic remedies from literature and tries
them out.
Five short stories capturing a strange day - the very last time of going to work.
On a tiny Antarctic island, there's a hut. It's a post office, and every summer it
becomes surrounded by 4000 Gentoo penguins which come here to breed.
I Martin Wainwright will ask how such a limited and limiting identity for the
North evolved?
Bernard Cribbins has agreed to present this series featuring a three day course
on how to run your own Fish & Chip shop.
Charles Emmerson travels around Mount Ararat, charting the stories of the
Kurds, Turks, Armenians, Azeris and Iranians who live in its shadow.
Tree-climber James Aldred explores the lives of five iconic trees.
66
9 OCLOCK SERIES
Reference number: 47004
Commissioning Editor:
Jane Ellison
Commissioning Assistant: Shauna Todd
Eligibility: You must be able to demonstrate a track record in production relevant
to your proposal.
Slot: Weekdays, 0900
Duration: 28'
Transmission period: April 2015 to March 2016
Guide Price: 7,000 (interview and studio formats)
Estimated number of programmes available for open competition: 2 or 3 series
EDITORIAL GUIDE
The 9 am slot is one of the most high profile showcases on Radio 4. It is the home of
some of the networks best known, well-loved and long running factual programmes:
Start the Week, Midweek, In Our Time and Desert Island Discs.
Series such as The Reunion, The Long View, Stephen Frys English Delight The Life
Scientific have also established themselves here. And there have been more ad hoc
series such as Voices from the Old Bailey or Public Philosopher. Space will be left
for more reactive commissions like the recent history of the Middle East Uncovering
the Arab World or the MINT season.
As in previous rounds, we will be considering the very best documentary and long
form feature ideas from the material that is submitted at 20:02 and 11:02 into this
high profile slot.
In this round, we are also interested in ideas for a small number of potential new
formats based around interview or studio that might work here. We are keen to
encourage innovative and surprising ways of thinking about the mix at 9 am.
Depending on the idea we might commission a pilot rather than going into
production.
67
Budget
Radio 4 expects to pay the guide price for programmes in this slot so please budget
at that level and use the guide price as the budget. If the expected price differs
significantly from the guide price please discuss it with the commissioning editor
during pre- offers meetings and include a note in the long synopsis of the final offer
explaining the reason.
Podcasts
Radio 4 may wish to include programmes from this slot in one of its podcasts. With
your agreement, the Radio 4 Interactive team would publish the podcast from the
supplied programme. Radio 4 will meet any additional clearance costs attributable to
the podcast. When we ask for your agreement to the podcast, we'll also ask for an
estimate of clearance costs to enable us to decide whether it is practical to proceed.
Proposal to include
clear treatment and explanation why the format will sound fresh and new
suggested cast list, suggested presenter(s) and whether he/she has been
approached.
68
No Triumph No Tragedy
Decision Time
How decisions made by the great colonial powers in the dying days
of the Ottoman Empire during WW1 created seismic changes which
are still reverberating to this day in the modern Arab World.
Lives and ideas of three great men, CS Lewis, Aldous Huxley, and
John F Kennedy, who all died on the same day, 50 years ago.
69
Tony Phillips
Vanessa Morris & Karen Howe
70
EDITORIAL GUIDE
Popular arts features offer audiences an opportunity to engage deeply with a single story
or short series of programmes. They are scheduled between general factual features
and You and Yours, this slot then introduces a distinctive note to the mid-morning
schedule by focusing on the eclecticism of modern culture in the UK and around the
world.
We are looking for the most engaging and adventurous single programmes and series.
These will often be driven by a strong narrative and a burning passion to tell stories that
offer audiences fresh insights into aspects of literature, drama, visual arts etc.
We are also looking for opportunities to financially support a select number of ideas that
have accompanying multiplatform components such as film, audio-slideshows and
animations.
Please do not enter more than 10 offers for each of the arts slots.
For BBC departments with an output guarantee, please limit your total offers
to three times the number remaining in your guarantee.
71
description
The hunt for the truth about the most influential and enigmatic of graphic
designers.
Black is a Country
This two part series explores the musical underground of the Black Power
movement.
Penelope Keith explores the radio serial Mrs Dales Diary 40 years after it
ended.
The first reunion in 70 years of writer Shirley Hughes and her 1940s dancing
partner
Al Read Rediscovered
OSCAR SINGS
Andrew Collins explores how the award for 'Best Song' reflects a changing
film landscape
How Tarzan has enjoyed a hundred years swinging through the jungle of
popular culture.
Paul Morley on the 7 inch single's grand relative - the 12 inch - and its peak
in the 80s.
Comedian and musician Rich Morton explores the laid-back world of lounge
music.
72
Paul Allen examines the use of verbatim eyewitness accounts and legal
evidence in theatre
The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of Pugin's Gothic masterpiece, Alton Towers.
Julian Barnes and Hermione Lee visit the places which inspired a classic
novel.
One million books given away for free - how did it affect those involved?
Alastair Sooke investigates the history of the ampersand.
Jonathan Glancey argues that amid closures the public library is also being
re-invented.
Poetry, Texas
The Danish poet Pejk Malinovski stumbles upon a small town in Texas
called Poetry.
Follow Up Albums
Pete Paphides tells the story behind Dexys Midnight Runners' Don't Stand
Me Down.
Deborah Bull takes us into the life and work of Pina Bausch's Tanztheater
John Wilson looks at the role of music in professional sport.
If all the world's a stage, how do actors face old age dramas?
Forced Entertainment
Mark Burman strips away the layers of Stuart Freeborn's remarkable life in
movie make-up.
The Uncanny
The Voice of God
The Godfather of Ulster Punk
Ann Widdecombe's Hell Hounds and
Night Hags
Ulster's Forgotten Darling
How has The Uncanny shaped fiction, film, architecture and art?
Ricard Coles on the various ways that the voice of God is depicted, and
what this reveals.
Alan Dein meets figurehead of the Northern Irish punk scene, Terri Hooley
Ann Widdecombe explores the supernatural lore and legend of Dartmoor.
Fionola Meredith goes in search of medieval scholar, author and poet,
Helen Waddell.
73
Challenging Kane
Matthew Sweet asks if Citizen Kane should again be voted the greatest film
ever.
The Best of Everything - the steamy 1950s novel that was ahead of its time.
Paul Jackson and a team of script writers assess the legacy of Steptoe
& Son, 50 years on
Tracing the legacy of the cult Swiss-German writer Hermann Hesse.
Stuart Maconie on rock musicians who combined symphony and pop music
in the 60s and 70s
The life-story of Ted Lewis, author of the novel which became the popular
film Get Carter
Phill Jupitus journeys back to the steam-powered future to party like it's
1899.
Poet Salena Godden considers the impact of her Jamaican heritage on her
literary identity.
Big Shot
John Sugar explores an evolving music industry and the changing role of
music manager.
Pop songs are 3 minutes, movies about 90. Grace Dent looks at how
duration shapes culture.
Writer and comedian Stewart Lee explores the television series Children of
the Stones.
Irish novelist Patrick McCabe explores the Irish influences on Bram Stoker's
Dracula.
Nick Fraser makes the case for rediscovering the work of Richard Yates
Reece Shearsmith meets the female screen stars of horror.
Mukti Jain Campion looks back at the heyday of Rome's most famous film
studios.
Artist Nicola Green charts her journey to capture images of Barack Obama's
2008 campaign.
Comedian Tim Key spins his own surreal tale of one of Russia's greatest
short stories.
74
Words on Water
The views of writers who use fishing to explore our relationship with nature
and our place
Expressing Pain
Stuart Flanagan explores how art can help in the consulting room.
Neil Tennant recalls his stint, from Christmas 1982, on pop's most
successful magazine.
Grease has entertained audiences for over 40 years, Alan Dein searches for
its true roots.
Beatrix Potter's The Tailor of Gloucester restored with its original Chistmas
music
Mark Radcliffe recalls the influential life of cult DJ and club promoter, Roger
Eagle.
Susan Marling reports from the Hudson Valley on the painters that shaped
America.
Guy Garvey on the challenge of turning a collection of songs into a single
piece of art.
Joe Dunthorne's England Writers Football Team plays against the Scotland
Writers Team.
Lyrical Journey
Peter White hears about Damon Runyon, who captured New York's lowlife
vibes in the 1920s.
Susan Hitch finds out about the boys created the female roles in
Shakespeare's plays.
75
Marseille 2013
John Lloyd celebrates 30 years of The Meaning of Liff with Matt Lucas and
Helen Fielding.
Sound Painting
Tim Marlow explores the kinds of sounds and music that influence an artist's
art and work.
The story of how Chicago's black artists of the 20th Century forged a new
identity.
The Confederacy of Dunces, one of the great comic books of the 20th
century, had a difficult gestation as a book; attempts to film it over the past
30 years have been similarly cursed.
Rhymes of Passion
I Wandered Lonely as a Cat: Poetry
and Jazz.
The Arthur Cravan Memorial Society
Foot Notes
Destination Freedom
Laura Barton tells the true story behind By Grand Central Station I Sat
Down and Wept.
Ian McMillan reveals the heart of Poetry and Jazz and detects its strong
beats today
Arthur Smith convenes the last ever meeting of the Arthur Cravan Memorial
Society and pieces together an unreliable portrait of this charlatan and
genius - the Dada-ist James Dean.
They communicate our sexual desires, aesthetic sense, social status and
personality. And whilst our eyes may be windows to the soul - psychologists
say that it is in fact our shoes that are the gateway to our psyche.
It's often assumed that the drive for black emancipation in America began
with Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. This feature
challenges the perception, taking us back years earlier to the arts
broadcasting of Chicago radio's 'Destination Freedom!'
Lesley Garrett examines the story of Cio-Cio San, who evolving from a short
novel was brought to the stage by Puccini in Madama Butterfly, and
captured the imagination of writers, performers and directors remaining one
of popular cultures most enduring characters.
Bob Kaufman was a pioneer of the Beat Movement and the most influential
African-American artists of the Beat Generation. The distinctive jazz
influence on his work meant he was often referred to as The Original Be
Bop Man or The American Rimbaud.
Teen Novels from America in the 70's featured crazy mixed up kids, girls
mainly. Sarah Cuddon loved them
In 1970, Berry Gordy, the founder of the Motown record label, set up a
Motown spoken word label. It was called Black Forum records and
recorded poetry, civil rights speeches, political gatherings...
Designing churches requires a certain kind of architect - it's about bringing
together the divine with the concrete, creating a space separate from the
secular world. Under the umbrella of the Glasgow practice of Gillespie Kidd;
Coia (GKC), Isi Metzstein and Andrew MacMillan seized on the momentary
experimentalism of the Catholic Church to revolutionise church design.
The author of classics such as Hunger, Mysteries, Victoria and Pan,
Hamsun is considered by many to be the Godfather of Modern Fiction.
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Capra-esque
Wireless Nights
"The art of [my films] is very, very simple... it's the love of people. Add two
simple ideals to this love of people: the freedom of each individual and the
equal importance of each individual and you have the principle on which I've
based all my films." - Frank Capra, 1982
Ex-soldiers with stress disorders take a Shakespeare play about the costs
of war to a paying public.
Baz Luhrmann's much anticipated film version of The Great Gatsby opens
in the UK on May 17th Here, Sarah Churchwell offers her take on what
makes the slimmest of Fitzgerald's novels not only an enduring classic, but
a huge force in American fiction and, some would say, the greatest
American novel.
We go into the artist's studio to follow royal portrait painter Fiona GrahamMackay as she paints the poet Seamus Heaney.
Bernard Cribbins OBE, is one of our most enduring - and endearing allround entertainers having starred in everything - from Dr. Who to doing all
the voices of The Wombles - during his 65 years of showbusiness. In this
revealing personal reminiscence, he recalls his extraordinary career and
ponders on what he thinks has made him so successful an actor. With
contributions from colleagues and fellow entertainment legends - we'll
discover his secret and why it is, that everybody loves Bernard.
The stories Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow are two of the
formative texts in modern American literature, and were written, naturally
enough, in Birmingham.
Jarvis Cocker prowls the darkness, eavesdropping on stories of the night
people.
Paula Rego's studio is an old garage complete with forklift trucks and a
costume wardrobe; David Gentleman's' a neat white attic. How does an
artists' studio reflect their art and do they still need one? We send artist
Susan Aldworth in with sharpened palette knife and microphone.
The magazine Modern Poetry in Translation was started by Ted Hughes
after WW2...
The Artists who are walking in Godzilla's Footsteps to come to terms with
Japan's Tsunami.
Ebony Magazine changed the face of Black publishing and Black America.
Gary Younge charts it's irresistible rise and fall.
In 'Lowry Revisited' Michael Symmons Roberts will offer his own personal
re-appraisal of the artist and the man.
The story of Derry's controversial 400 year old walls as told by 'Anna Nicole'
composer Mark Anthony Turnage and poet Paul Muldoon.
Arthur Machen was a novelist and mystic whose greatest work was the
novella The Great God Pan (Stephen King calls it the greatest horror story
in the English Language).
Musician and comedian Rainer Hersch on the life of near namesake William
Herschel - a German-born British composer and astronomer who
discovered Uranus, and infrared radiation. He also composed 24
symphonies.
Documentary maker Adam Curtis pays homage to the writer who inspired
him.
Hersch on Herschel
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Troubled Walls
Dinner at Annaghmakerrig
Houses of Creativity
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MUSIC FEATURE
Commissioning Editor:
Tony Phillips
Commissioning Assistant: Vanessa Morris & Karen Howe
Reference number: 47133
Eligibility: You must be able to demonstrate a track record in production relevant to
your proposal.
Slot: Tuesday, 1130
Duration: 28
Transmission period: April 2015 March 2016
Guide price: 6.2k
Estimated number of programmes: 15
EDITORIAL GUIDE
What are we looking for?
Extraordinary and original stories that will immerse the audience deep into the worlds
of music, musicians and those whose lives are or have been touched by music.
Radio 4 is of course not primarily a music network so its important that your ideas reflect
the sensibility of a speech based network. The treatments that will be most successful
will be those that acknowledge and reflect the fact that the network is primarily a
speechbased network. As a result music stories should be driven by strong narratives
that explore and investigate music through the prism of personal narratives, cultural
movements or events.
Please do not enter more than 10 offers for each of the arts slots.
For BBC departments with an output guarantee, please limit your total offers
to three times the number remaining in your guarantee.
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description
Folk singer Martin Carthy examines the rise and fall of Ewan MacColl's
Critics Group.
Bach's Choir
Stephen Evans traces the 800 year history of the boys choir of St
Thomas' Church, Leipzig.
Catherine Bott explores the Bronte sisters' musical world through their
restored piano
William Lyons conjures the brash and brilliant music of the 500 year old
town Waits
The intriguing tale of Alexey Arhipovskiy and his new balalaika sound.
Conjuring Halie
The extraordinary story of how classic Irish folk songs were saved from
extinction.
Cerys Matthews indulges her passion for the seminal British Blues
record label
Presenter Eddi Fiegel explores the song writing of John Barry through
a lost interview.
Changing My Voice
Anna Chen explores the history of the famous Chinese Model Operas
Making Tracks
Composing LA
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Swansong
A new series in which Stuart Maconie looks at four final albums, and
tells their stories.
Who's Drummer?
Nick Barraclough finds out about the fifteen minutes of fame for one
young fan of The Who.
An Alternative Christmas
Riot Grrrls
Guy Schalom hunts out the spirit of the new Egypt in the musical roots
of the bellydance
Jazz is Dead
Paul Morley tests the contention that jazz is dead - a victim of its own
history.
David Grant revisits a unique era in British music when jazz funk
exploded onto the scene.
Robin Denselow hears the music of the Saharawi people in the refugee
camps of Algeria.
Flashmob Flamenco
Ella in Berlin
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The series that finds the magic of the creative moment in the handwritten manuscripts of some of the greats of the classical repertoire
heads towards its tenth series with a humdinger of a collection.
Soul Music
About A Boy
Tom Ravenscroft is fascinated by the one man band and for Radio 4
he goes in search of the musical characters who prefer to go solo.
Stuart Maconie tracks down the legendary lost figure of British folk
music, Nic Jones.
For a thousand years the nightingale has been the most celebrated
song-bird in the western world.
'So tun'st this World below, the Spheres above, Who in the Heavenly
Round to their own Music move' (Henry Purcell)
Every year the Welsh seaside town of Porthcawl holds the most
important Elivs festival outside the legendary singer's homelands in the
states.
From Mahler's "Das Klagende Lied" to Leonard Bernstein's "Chichester
Psalms" and Howard Blake's "The Snowman", the singing voice of the
solo boy has taken on a potency for many composers through the
centuries.
Reem Kelani revisits migrant musicians who were putting down roots in
the UK a decade ago
Poet and musician Anthony Joseph pays tribute in storytelling, poetry
and song to his hero, the Windrush calypsonian Aldwyn Roberts aka
'Lord Kitchener'.
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POETRY FEATURE
Commissioning Editor:
Tony Phillips
Commissioning Assistant: Vanessa Morris & Karen Howe
Reference number: 47114
Eligibility: You must be able to demonstrate a track record in production relevant to
your proposal.
Slot: Sunday 16.30 (repeat: Saturday, 23.30)
Duration: 28
Transmission period: April 2015 March 2016
Guide price: 6.2k
Estimated number of programmes: 10
EDITORIAL GUIDE
What are we looking for?
There has always been a close relationship between poetry and radio, and in particular
Radio 4. We know that people often turn to poetry at significant moments in their lives
in sorrow or in celebration; Poetry Please is testament to that. Fresh and original
features that can offer the audience new, original and thoughtful perspectives on poets,
poems or the craft of writing or listening to poetry will be most welcome.
Challenge us with new work, new writers, new formats, new voices. BBC Bristol
responded to this last year with Paul Farley presenting an engagingly original format for
new poetry, The Echo Chamber. Indicative names of presenters at pre-offers stage is
always useful. And remember the guide price is a guide we try to adhere to but for the
occasional project that is offering an ambitious multi-platform idea, please make this
clear at pre-offers and final offers stage.
If the idea is the presenters or they have been involved in its development, please make
this clear at the pre offers and final offers stage.to save confusion or embarrassment
later.
This is the home of the long-running and popular anthology series Poetry Please.
Between runs we broadcast complementary works celebrating and investigating poetry,
poets and the experience of writing and reading poetry.
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Please do not enter more than 10 offers for each of the arts slots.
For BBC departments with an output guarantee, please limit your total offers
to three times the number remaining in your guarantee.
description
Stephen Henry Gill in the poet Basho's path to areas of Japan
devastated by the tsunami.
Adventures in Poetry
A Foreigner Everywhere
Paul Farley seeks out the famous visitor who interrupted Coleridge's
writing of Kubla Khan
Poetry 2012 - the Power of the Poem: offering a window into each
Olympic nation
Medieval historian Miri Rubin explores the history of the most famous
of Hebrew poems.
THE SEAFARER
Gwyneth Lewis, the first Welsh Poet Laureate, goes in search of the
Welsh language Chaucer
Return to Oasis
Poetry Workshop
Ruth Padel works on poems in progress with The Dove Cottage Poets
in Grasmere.
A Few Don'ts
Annie Freud explores the work of the all-American poet, William Carlos
WIlliams.
Irma Kurtz tells the story of poet Ursula Vaughan Williams, the
composer's second wife.
Broken Paradise
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Poet Jean Sprackland props up the bar of the oldest pub in Leeds described by John Betjeman as 'the very heart of Leeds' and, in the
company of bar staff, drinkers and poets, tells the story of the
overlooked 'Leeds school' of poetry.
Sonnets to Orpheus
Poetry Please
Poetry Idol
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EDITORIAL GUIDE
What distinguishes a Special Event or Season is that it should be a proposal on a
single theme which crosses strands or day parts. The impact will be different and
distinctive from the rest of the stations schedule. A sense of occasion or celebration
may be created.
Special Events proposals might span a variety of commissioning briefs and their
coherence becomes obvious only when the various parts are assembled.
Sometimes, small, carefully constructed clusters of programmes might be
commissioned from one supplier in their entirety, but more often Radio 4
management will want to take an active role in scoping out the scale and
scheduling of a season.
Therefore, ideas for Special Events that get past the pre-offers stage should be
discussed with Commissioning Editors and the Controller before you do any
work on the detail.
Anniversaries and seasons might be celebrated on several or all stations. What we
need is for your proposal for Radio 4 to be utterly distinctive and clearly shaped for
our audience.
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landmark events
programmes, across the genres, which merit a different duration from what
the normal schedule allows.
Interactive
Proposals for special events should also outline any interactive component they may
have. This does not mean that every event has to have a big interactive wing or a
vote but it is an important consideration. Note the success of the Big Bang Day
and History of the World online component.
We are looking for big ideas with a fully integrated interactive dimension.
Remember, though, that we are looking to commission only a very few such ideas
this year, so do be realistic about the development time you devote to this area. Do
not enter a budget estimate for the interactive element of your proposal. This will be
considered on an ad hoc basis once we decide to take an idea forward.
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Working with BBC Radio 4 is the essential handbook for all suppliers.
Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/radio/what-we-want/radio-4.shtml
It covers:
Whos who at Radio 4, with contact details
Delivery
Schedule information
Editorial requirements
Compliance
Title changes
Technical requirements
Listening copies
Live programmes
Durations
Announcements and credits
Programme Descriptions (billings, promotion notes & presentation details)
On-air promotion and written trails
Repeats
Scheduled and revised repeats
Delayed repeats
Publicity
Marketing
Audience Research
Audience Lines
Arranging Audience Lines support
Trailing Audience Lines on air
Feedback
Radio 4 Interactive
Broadcasting on the internet
Health and safety
Radio 4 contacts
Appendices
A: Topicality status
B: Credits on Radio 4
C: Making better trails
D: Synopses for serials
E: Summary of paperwork requirements
F: Programme paperwork templates
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