BBC, BBC Worldwide and US public service broadcaster PBS announce new deal
Programmes in first year of the deal include new BBC One landmark natural history series, Earth’s Natural Wonders.
Published: 20 January 2015
PBS shares our commitment for impeccable editorial standards and our passion to be inventive in how we tell stories.
The BBC, BBC Worldwide and American public service broadcaster PBS have struck a new deal to develop and deliver an ambitious range of new programming.
The partnership will create inspiring content across a range of factual genres including natural history, science, history, religion and the arts.
The deal will encompass around eight to ten new programming specials across approximately 20 hours a year, with content in the first year including a new series for BBC One, Earth’s Natural Wonders. The programme will take viewers on a landmark tour of Earth, discovering connections between some incredible places and the life and death struggles of the animals and humans that inhabit them.
Other programmes in the deal include the remarkable story of one of the ‘dinosaur finds of the century’, Waking Giants, presented by Sir David Attenborough; and Super Nature: Flight Revealed, which uses cutting edge technology to reveal the secrets of flight - one of nature's greatest innovations.
Natalie Humphreys, BBC Controller of Factual and Daytime Production, says: “PBS shares our commitment for impeccable editorial standards and our passion to be inventive in how we tell stories and to deliver new insights to audiences. These shared values make it a pleasure to work together.”
Matt Forde, Executive Vice President TV Sales and Co-Productions, BBC Worldwide North America, says: “This deal allows BBC and PBS to develop and deliver a wealth of the highest quality multi-genre factual content - which will entertain and inspire audiences across the country.
“Our organizations have a long standing relationship in bringing the best of British content to American audiences, with critically acclaimed titles like Sherlock and Call The Midwife and this is the perfect foundation on which to extend this partnership into the factual space.”
Beth Hoppe, Chief Programming Executive and General Manager, Audience Programming, PBS, says: “As two of the world’s leading public media organizations, we are thrilled to partner with the BBC to expand the range of exceptional programming available to our stations and their audiences.
“PBS and the BBC share similar public service missions and the same commitment to producing entertaining and educational programming of the highest quality. We look forward to a long and successful partnership bringing the best from both organizations to the table.”
BBC One’s Earth’s Natural Wonders was commissioned by BBC One Controller Charlotte Moore and Tom McDonald, Acting Head of Commissioning, Science and Natural History. The Commissioning Editor is Aidan Laverty and the Executive Producer is Mark Hedgecoe.
Earth’s Natural Wonders will reveal a handful of places that can lay claim to being the greatest landscapes on our planet.
Viewers will be taken on a landmark tour of Earth, discovering connections between some incredible places and the life and death struggles of the animals and humans that inhabit them. The series reveals how natural wonders, including Everest, the Grand Canyon and Victoria Falls, were created by powerful energies. This series is the definitive story of some of the most amazing places on our planet.
BBC One’s Super Nature: Flight Revealed was commissioned by BBC One Controller Charlotte Moore and Tom McDonald, Acting Head of Commissioning, Science and Natural History, the Commissioning Editor is Craig Hunter and the Executive Producer is Tim Scoones.
Flight is the ultimate super-power – an extraordinary ability most of us can only dream of – until now…
This three-part series uses cutting edge technology to reveal the secrets of flight - one of nature's greatest innovations.
Cameras developed to film the London Olympics and Hollywood stunts take us up into the air to meet a whole host of extraordinary animals - giant flying squirrels, flying fish and even flying snakes. Red kangaroos, goliath beetles and leaping bugs and many more show us that there are many ways to become an expert aeronaut - unique and surprising adaptations have enabled a whole range of amazing animal innovators to conquer the skies.
For the first time, super hi-speed cameras reveal how one male humming bird exceeds the G-force of a space shuttle re-entering the atmosphere - all to impress females; an underwater 'timeslice' camera system captures the extraordinary moment when a flying fish transforms its fins into wings; and a state of the art 'Flycam' enables us to fly at breakneck speed alongside a sparrowhawk as it hunts down its prey in the obstacle course of Britain's back gardens.
Join us as we enter the skyworld and experience it like never before, as our extraordinary animal aeronauts jump, glide and fly their way to supremacy in the air.
BBC One’s Waking Giants was commissioned by BBC One Controller Charlotte Moore and Tom McDonald, Acting Head of Commissioning, Science and Natural History. The Commissioning Editor is Tom McDonald and the Executive Producer is Mike Gunton.
Presented by Sir David Attenborough, Waking Giants tells the remarkable story of one of the ‘dinosaur finds of the century’ - over 200 bones from seven giant creatures that have recently been unearthed after 100 million years of lying undiscovered beneath the South American desert - one thigh bone alone measures 2.4 metres in length, a record.
This new species of titanosaur is as yet unnamed. Sir David and the team think they could have stumbled upon the largest dinosaur and indeed the largest animal that has ever walked on Earth. In this extraordinary pre-historic detective story, Sir David investigates a once-in-a-lifetime discovery that experts believe will rewrite text books and could change the way we look at dinosaurs forever.
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