Commissioning Round for 2021-22 Timetable and Guidelines to making programmes for BBC World Service The Commissioning Timetable 2020* Thursday 2nd July 2020 Guidelines will be published on https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3hVSnfcdKWdtW0tffb81FbV/bbc-world-service Proteus opens - at this stage Commissioning Editors only require THREE LINE DESCRIPTIONS. Please use the SHORT SYNOPSIS box only. Sports Podcast Timetable *Please note: There is a separate timetable for the Sports Podcast: This is one round only (see the brief for details of what is required) Thursday 30th July (12 noon) Deadline for submissions for initial proposals into Proteus. At this stage Commissioning Editors only require THREE LINE DESCRIPTIONS. Please use the SHORT SYNOPSIS box only Thursday 30th July (12 noon) Deadline for submissions for Sports Podcast Mid-September Results for Sports Podcast will be published in Proteus. Thursday 10th September Pre-offers results published in Proteus. Wednesday 30th September (12 noon) Deadline to submit your final proposals into Proteus. End October Results will be published in Proteus. ***NB: Please ensure that you have access to Proteus early in the process.*** We do not accept proposals from individuals – submissions MUST come through an in-house supplier or registered independent production company. For independent suppliers: details of how to register your company for the database can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/radio 1 Contacts Mary Hockaday, Controller [email protected] Steve Titherington, Senior Commissioning Editor [email protected] Simon Pitts, Commissioning Editor [email protected] Jon Manel, Podcast Commissioning Editor [email protected] Murray Holgate, Network Manager [email protected] Anna Doble, Digital Editor [email protected] Vanessa Morris & Karen Howe, Commissioning Coordinators vanessamorris&[email protected] 2 Guide Prices The Documentary 20 22’59” and 26’29” £6.6K The Hour Documentary 20 Clocked hour £11.2K The Compass 8-15 series 22’59” and 26’29” £6.6K Witness 10 9’00” £1.3K Heart and Soul 11 26’29” £6K The Cultural Frontline 2 22’59” and 26’29” £6.6K NB: These are to tx before end October 2021. In the Studio 7 26’29” £6.6K NB: These are to tx before end October 2021. Podcasts – see individual briefs The Proteus system is used for the submission of offers. All proposals must be delivered in Proteus. We do not require hard copies of any proposals. BBC departments access PROTEUS via http://proteuslive.radio.bbc.co.uk/proteus-web/login.action Independent companies access PROTEUS via a portal: https://ext-proteus.external.bbc.co.uk/proteus-web/login.action Enter in: World Service Commissioning Round 2021/2022 Commissioning Year: 2021/2022 Commissioning Round: 1 3 World Service English This commissioning round takes place in extraordinary times, of great global uncertainty, peril, resilience and reflection. BBC World Service has been on air throughout and will continue to be, reporting on Covid-19 and complementing the news with a rich range of programmes across science, business, culture, human endeavour and conversation. As ever, our in-house and independent suppliers are essential to the sound of BBC World Service and I am very grateful for the determination and inventiveness you have shown to provide commissioned programmes and responsive offers. Our audience has been very appreciative, turning to us for trustworthy news and information and for comfort, stimulation and inspiration. It’s been important to provide a mix of Covid and non-Covid-related programmes and as we look ahead to 2021 we’ll be looking for the right mix. The world will still be living with Covid in one way or another, at the same time it is not and will not be the only story. So be creative and think broadly. We look forward to your ideas. Mary 4 The BBC World Service is a 24-7 network of news, current affairs and rich radio. News programmes include Newshour, The Newsroom, Outside Source and Newsday. Alongside this spine of News content we have programmes specializing in sport, business, science, culture, debate, human interest and analysis. In recent years we have been able to add to the range and depth of programmes on the network and related digital content. We have a massive global audience (and an important audience in the UK) who all share a sense of curiosity about the world and a desire to connect with that world. Perhaps more so than ever. Our audience is everywhere. Our surveys show the biggest single audiences are in the United States and Africa, but listeners find us on their phones, radios, PCs and partner stations in just about every country. That audience is increasing and we now reach more than 97 million people. Our audience is both discerning and demanding, whether college-educated or - in many cases - not. In most places there is increasingly vibrant local media and access to other global media, so we have to be appealing and relevant. The World Service schedule is flexible so we can adapt to breaking news, but we always try to ensure there’s a broad range of topics and styles on the Network. Five minute news bulletins sit at the top of every hour and a two minute summary of world news at the bottom of every hour, so News is an ever present part of the Network. But we want to take people on a journey that offers much more in terms of a portrait of the world and how we live. We want programmes that stimulate thought, provoke discussion and offer solutions as well as show problems. We want to be a place where people who care about the world can connect and understand it better – in all aspects of life. All our programmes take a contemporary and global approach, and are rigorous with high production standards. Radio and Digital Increasingly, we reach audiences via digital and social platforms. This document includes notes on how to make sure your content will thrive in this arena. There are 2 specific podcast briefs and we may want a separate podcast version of your programme, online feature material, clips, quotes, facts and short form visuals, and we’ll discuss with you how to promote your programme as a podcast. We need high quality visuals of the places and people that feature in your programme – more on the format below. This is all designed to bring more audiences to your content. What we are looking for in 2021-22? Our programmes are clever, conversational and inclusive. They should be effortlessly international and stand up to scrutiny from the people or country being discussed in the programme as well as being resonant for the widest audiences. We aim to capture the big themes and talking points of the time, as well as offering the unexpected and unfamiliar. Our mission is to connect, explain, inform and also to celebrate great listening and fantastic stories. We need to be funny as well as serious, to challenge preconceptions, and reveal a world which is exciting as well as sometimes frightening. We create a space for deeply personal views and experiences to be expressed freely. We will put all the resources necessary to make what we do together the very best it can be. We want great story-tellers to speak to the world. We love rich sound and a sense of place; being where our audience is (pandemic creativity allowing). We seek engaging, challenging ideas led by the brightest narrators and production. And we welcome collaboration, bringing in fresh talent and simply trying something new. Be ambitious. 5 The Compass The Compass is our space for ideas and stories which are too big for single documentaries. Series are generally 3-6 episodes and must deserve the descriptor ‘flagship series’. The audience will be rewarded with a real take-away – new insight and understanding, awe and perhaps delight. Covid-19 will still be with us one way or another, but think laterally. What has been knocked off the agenda by CV-19 and must come back? What is in front of us but must be dived into deeper, what is as yet unknown and must be told? Your story-telling must be compelling and high quality to carry the narrative arc across the series. Be realistic and innovative about delivery from Spring 2021 onwards. Documentaries (30 minutes & 60 minutes) The ways we make programmes, the subjects we cover and who tells these stories, all needs shaking up! “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present” as Abraham Lincoln once put it. Something is changing in the world, and changing what people want to listen to. So it’s time to think boldly and imaginatively about stories which resonate with everyone, which tell us something about this new world. And we want to think of new ways of actually compiling them. We want to fly less, partner more; share and support fellow news organisations around the world. We want to think how best to relate to the BBC World Service Language services around the world, and we want to be so truly global in our appeal, that our audiences are excited by the prospect of each and every documentary we create. We are championing new talent on air, new ways of telling stories and making difficult global issues accessible to all. These are challenging times, but what else can we do? We want ideas for documentaries that change the lives of those who listen.. be they about sport, business, music, war, peace and everything in between. In The Studio For in The Studio we're looking to commission programmes for TX between April and October 2021.