The Natural History Unit is a specialist department within BBC Studios Productions. Each year it produces around 100 hours of television and 50 hours of radio programmes, making it the largest wildlife documentary production house in the world.[1] The BBC commissions programmes from the Unit for broadcast on five terrestrial television channels (BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Four, CBBC and CBeebies) and BBC Radio 4. It also makes programmes for other broadcasters and services including Apple TV+, Warner Bros. Discovery, National Geographic Global Networks and NBC Universal. Content is marketed internationally under the BBC Earth brand. Original content is also broadcast on the Earth UnpluggedYouTube channel.[2]
The Unit has been based in Broadcasting House, Bristol since its formation in 1957, and has been headed by Jonny Keeling since 2021.[3]
The BBC natural history unit's links to Bristol date back to the 1940s, when Desmond Hawkins, then a young producer, joined the West Region staff. His personal interest in the subject led to a radio series called The Naturalist, which began on the Home Service in 1946 and proved an immediate success, later augmented by Out of Doors and Birds in Britain.
By the early 1950s, Hawkins had been promoted to Head of Programmes, West Region and was keen to translate his success to the developing medium of television. At the time, radio still commanded much higher audiences than the fledgling television service, but Hawkins was not alone in recognising the potential for natural history programmes for the newer medium. His vision was shared by Frank Gillard, the regional Head, and the two men would become the driving force behind the establishment of the Natural History Unit (NHU) in Bristol.
Until such formalities were completed, natural history programmes were the responsibility of the Features office of the West Region. One of the first programmes was an outside broadcast from the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust's centre at Slimbridge in 1953, the first TV collaboration between the BBC and Peter Scott. Occasional programmes continued the following year, but it was not until 1955 that the BBC began a regular studio-based series, Look, presented by Scott.
One of the early problems for the Unit was the difficulty in sourcing film stock. At the time, the only wildlife cameramen were amateurs, and the footage wasn't always good enough for broadcast. The embryo unit's first film camera, a clockwork Bolex, was bought from a Bristol camera shop with petty cash by Desmond's assistant, Tony Soper. Some of Scott's own expedition films were used for early episodes of Look. One particularly outstanding film from 1955, shot by Heinz Sielmann, showed woodpeckers inside a nest hole.
By 1957, with Look firmly established and Gillard and Hawkins lobbying hard, the BBC management in London approved the official formation of a Natural History Unit. Gillard was on the search for a senior producer to head the new Unit, and asked David Attenborough to take on the role. Attenborough had good credentials (he was a trained zoologist) but declined, having recently settled in London with his young family. Instead, he was placed in charge of the newly formed Travel and Exploration Unit, striking a deal which would allow him to continue to film his popular Zoo Quest (1954–1963) series alongside natural history output from the fledgling Bristol unit. The Travel and Exploration Unit in London also introduced viewers to more exotic wildlife, and made household names of the first natural history presenters. Armand and Michaela Denis filmed East African wildlife for their On Safari programmes, whilst another pioneering husband-and-wife team, Hans and Lotte Hass, created some of the first underwater films.
Nicholas Crocker, a senior producer with West Region, became the Unit's first Head in September 1957. Founder members included Tony Soper (producer) and Christopher Parsons (assistant film editor), both of whom would go on to play a major part in the Unit's development.
Although much of the Unit's early output concentrated on British and European wildlife, one of its first productions to be broadcast was Faraway Look featuring Peter Scott in Australia. The early programmes were limited by the available technology, but it was also a time of great experimentation in style and content, bringing the Unit notable success. Animal Magic (1962–1983), presented by Johnny Morris and Tony Soper, was a successful format for young audiences which ran for over 20 years. The Unit also collaborated with Gerald Durrell on several films of his animal-collecting expeditions, beginning with the studio-based series To Bafut for Beef (April 1958), using African footage shot by Durrell.
Colour television arrives
In the early 1960s, natural history filmmaking was being held back by the limitations of the available technology, particularly the restrictions of shooting often fast-moving subjects in poor light and spectacularly colourful subjects in black and white. The second of these problems was about to be resolved.
Around the same time, the technology to broadcast and receive colour television was being developed, and the BBC made funds available to begin filming in colour to allow filmmakers to experiment with the latest equipment in preparation for the switchover. The Major (1963), produced by Parsons and filmed largely by New Forestcameraman Eric Ashby, told the story of an ancient English oak and was the Unit's first colour production. This was one of six films made for the BBC by part-time film-makers Ron Peggs and Leslie Jackman. Leslie filmed the insect sequences at his home in Paignton using specimens collected by John Burton.
Colour transmission finally arrived in 1967 on BBC 2 under the stewardship of David Attenborough, who had retired from programme-making to move into BBC administration. The first natural history film to be shown in colour was Ron Eastman's The Private Life of the Kingfisher (1968), written and produced by Jeffery Boswall.[4]
Attenborough, by then controller of BBC 2, wanted to make a strong statement on BBC's second channel of the boundless possibilities that colour television offered, and recognised that natural history was the obvious subject matter to choose. He commissioned a series called The World About Us (1969–1982) that would broadcast in a 50-minute Sunday evening slot. Because of the challenge of producing enough colour material, the commission was shared between the NHU and London's Travel and Exploration Unit. The extended opportunities offered by the 50-minute format and improvements in film technology and expertise finally allowed the NHU to begin showcasing its talent.
Birth of the 'personal view' series
One of Attenborough's main achievements as Controller of BBC 2 was to commission Civilisation (1969), a major series presented by the respected art historianKenneth Clark. It was a resounding success with critics and the public, pioneering the 'personal view' form of documentary films for television. Parsons, by then an experienced producer with the NHU, recognised the potential for a similar treatment with natural history as the subject and approached Attenborough in 1970 with the idea. Attenborough was receptive, even to the idea that he should present the series, but both men realised at that time that it was beyond the scope of the Unit's capabilities.
When Attenborough resigned from his administrative duties to return to programme making at the start of 1973, planning for the proposed series resumed. It was another three years before the resourcing and financing were agreed, the outline episode scripts written (by Attenborough) and a production team in place. Parsons would serve as series producer and share production duties for the individual episodes with Richard Brock and John Sparks. Filming took place in 39 countries, featured over 650 different species and involved over 1 million miles of travel. Attenborough himself has said that if it had not been for computerised airline schedules, the series would have probably been impossible to undertake. When it was finally broadcast in 1979 on BBC 1, Life on Earth drew an audience of 15 million people in the UK and was eventually seen by an estimated 500 million people worldwide.[5]
The Natural History Unit made its name with Life on Earth, and was rewarded by being awarded departmental status by BBC management in December 1979. Christopher Parsons, by then its most experienced producer, became the first official Head of the Unit. It celebrated its silver jubilee in 1982 with the miniseries Flight of the Condor, and sealed its reputation as one of the foremost production companies for popular natural history films in the following decades. A succession of series have followed the format established by Life on Earth, often presented or narrated by Attenborough, and transmitted on the BBC's main channel. The Blue Planet (2001) and Planet Earth (2006) typify these signature programmes, characterised by high production values, specially-commissioned musical scores and often ground-breaking footage of wildlife from around the globe.
The NHU has also diversified into other programme formats. Its Diary series have featured African big cats, elephants, orang-utans and bears in a nightly wildlife soap opera. Among of the longest-running programmes has been Wildlife on One (1977–2005) which was broadcast in a regular evening slot.
The Continents strand on BBC Two has featured series on all the world's major land areas over the past eighteen years, including Spirits of the Jaguar (1996), Land of the Tiger (1997), Andes to Amazon (2000) and Wild Down Under (2003). Also on BBC Two, the annual Springwatch (since 2005) and Autumnwatch (since 2006) series have brought live pictures of British wildlife into millions of homes.
50 years of wildlife film making
In 2007, the Unit celebrated its 50th anniversary and was rewarded with a special award at the International Broadcasting Convention in recognition of its unique contribution to wildlife film and documentary making.[6]
On television, the anniversary was marked with the broadcast of Saving Planet Earth, a conservation-themed series which helped to raise over £1.5million for the BBC Wildlife Fund.[7]
In October 2007, the BBC announced that the NHU would suffer cuts of a third in both staff numbers and its £37million annual budget, as a result of the Government's decision to impose a lower than inflation increase in the television licence fee. The cutbacks were widely condemned within the media industry and by programme-makers, including David Attenborough.[8][9]
In response to the criticism, Keith Scholey, Factual Controller of BBC Vision, promised that the BBC would "continue to make and show the ambitious, large-scale, truly memorable series that audiences associate with BBC natural history output".[10] Titles affected by the cuts include the BBC Two Wild strand.[8][11]
Productions already underway were not affected by the cuts, so the following year came Wild China, Pacific Abyss, Lost Land of the Jaguar and Big Cat Live, as well as the Unit's most ambitious radio event to date, World on the Move. Natural World also received a three-year commission from BBC Two on its 25th anniversary.
Modern era
Post 2010, a greater emphasis was placed on climate change, which several special programmes broadcast focusing on the issue. More broadly, series looked at the negative effects of climate change and habitat destruction within series that did not focus solely on the topic.
In 2016, BBC's non-news content production, including natural history, was separated into a commercial subsidiary BBC Studios.[12] NHU head Wendy Darke departed[12] and was succeeded by Julian Hector.
Since its inception in the 1950s, the Natural History Unit has produced a wealth of material for television, radio, and more recently, cinema. Being the first and the largest production unit devoted to natural history programme making, it maintains an extensive archive of images[13] and sound recordings as well as film materials. The filmography article presents a chronological summary of the Unit's major television and film productions.
In production
As well as returning series such as Springwatch and Autumnwatch and natural history content for BBC One's The One Show, the Unit has been commissioned to produce or co-produce the following announced titles:
Our Changing Planet, a seven-year project documenting environmental change in six threatened ecosystems, co-produced by PBS. It launched in April 2022 on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK and is due to conclude in 2028.[14]
OceanXplorers, a 6-part series for National Geographic, co-produced with James Cameron and OceanX, which premiered on 18 August 2024.[15][16]
Big Cats 24/7, a 6x60' series co-produced by PBS which launched in the UK on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer in August 2024. The BBC have announced the commissioning of a second series, due for transmission in 2025.[17][18]
Asia, a 7x60' series co-produced by BBC America and ZDF focussing on the natural history of Earth's largest continent. UK transmission began on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on 3 November 2024.[19]
The Secret Lives of Animals, a 10-part series for Apple TV+ to be narrated by Hugh Bonneville. The series will debut globally on 18 December 2024.[20]
The Americas, a 10-part series for NBC, due to premiere in February 2025.[21][22]
Kingdom, a 6x60' series due for transmission on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in 2025.[23]
Blue Planet III, a 6x60' series due for transmission on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in 2026.[24][25]
Hidden Planet, a 5x60' series co-produced by The Open University, for BBC One and BBC iPlayer.[26]
Expedition Killer Whale, a 1x60' one-off film for BBC Two and PBS with the WNET Group.[27]
Home, produced for Disney+ and National Geographic and billed as "the most ambitious and definitive portrait of life on Earth ever attempted", with a planned 9 seasons spanning a decade. Transmission dates have yet to be announced.[28]
Lion, produced for Disney+ and National Geographic in conjunction with Jon Favreau. Transmission dates have yet to be announced.[29]
Matriarch will focus on the lives of female chimpanzees in Jane Goodall's study troop in Gombe, Tanzania. The two-part series is co-produced by PBS and the WNET Group. Transmission dates have yet to be announced.[30]
Awards and recognition
The Natural History Unit as a whole was awarded the Gold Medal at the 2001 Royal Television Society awards for its "outstanding contribution over the past 44 years to broadcasting about the natural world". It was praised for being "a national resource for people's understanding and love of wildlife on our planet, and a symbol of both quality and talent in public service broadcasting".[31]
NHU filmmakers are regularly nominated and rewarded at film festivals such as Wildscreen, the Missoula International Wildlife Film Festival and the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival and their output has been recognised by the wider broadcasting industry too, winning four Emmys, eleven BAFTAs, and the Prix Italia on three occasions.[32][33]
Sir David Frederick Attenborough is a British broadcaster, biologist, natural historian, and writer. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Studios Natural History Unit, the nine nature documentary series forming the Life collection, a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth.
Life on Earth: A Natural History by David Attenborough is a British television natural history series made by the BBC in association with Warner Bros. Television and Reiner Moritz Productions. It was transmitted in the UK from 16 January 1979.
BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 1932, although the start of its regular service of television broadcasts is dated to 2 November 1936.
Natural World is a strand of British wildlife documentary programmes broadcast on BBC Two and BBC Two HD and regarded by the BBC as its flagship natural history series. It is the longest-running documentary in its genre on British television, with nearly 500 episodes broadcast since its inception in 1983. Natural World programmes are typically one-off films that take an in-depth look at particular natural history events, stories or subjects from around the globe.
Life in Cold Blood is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first broadcast in the United Kingdom from 4 February 2008 on BBC One.
Planet Earth is a 2006 nature documentary television miniseries produced as a co-production between the BBC Natural History Unit, BBC Worldwide, Discovery Channel and NHK, in association with CBC. Five years in the making, Planet Earth was the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC and also the first to be filmed in high definition. The series received multiple awards, including four Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, and an award from the Royal Television Society.
Neil Nightingale is a British freelance wildlife filmmaker, executive producer and creative consultant with over 35 years experience at the BBC. From 2009 to 2018 he was the creative director of BBC Earth, BBC Worldwide's global brand for all BBC nature and science content.
This is a chronological list of selected television programmes and feature films produced or co-produced by the BBC Studios Natural History Unit since its inception in 1957. It is not intended to be exhaustive given the large amount of material the Unit has produced in its history, but it does capture all the major TV series and films for which it has gained recognition. A brief synopsis of Pre 1957 radio and television programmes on a natural history theme made by the BBC is given in the History section of the main BBC Studios Natural History Unit article.
James Honeyborne is the creative director of Freeborne Media, he previously worked as an executive producer at the BBC Natural History Unit where he oversaw some 35 films, working with multiple co-producers around the world. His projects include the Emmy Award and BAFTA-winning series Blue Planet II, the Emmy Award-nominated series Wild New Zealand with National Geographic, and the BAFTA-winning BBC1 series Big Blue Live with PBS.
Life is a British nature documentary series created and produced as a co-production between the BBC Natural History Unit, Discovery Channel and Skai tv in association with The Open University. It was first broadcast as part of the BBC's Darwin Season on BBC One and BBC HD from October to December 2009 and was written and narrated by David Attenborough. The series takes a global view of the specialised strategies and extreme behaviour that living things have developed in order to survive; what Charles Darwin termed "the struggle for existence". Four years in the making, the series was shot entirely in high definition.
The following is a chronological list of television series and individual programmes in which Sir David Attenborough is credited as a writer, presenter, narrator, producer, interviewee, etc. In a career spanning eight decades, Attenborough's name has become synonymous with the natural history programmes produced by the BBC Natural History Unit.
Christopher Eugene Parsons OBE was an English wildlife film-maker and the executive producer of David Attenborough's Life on Earth nature documentary. As a founding member and a former Head of the BBC Natural History Unit, he worked on many of its early productions and published a history of its first 25 years in 1982. Besides television, he was also passionate about projects which helped to bring an understanding of the natural world to a wider audience, notably the Wildscreen Festival and ARKive.
Mike Gunton is a British television producer and a senior executive at the BBC Natural History Unit, the world's largest production unit dedicated to wildlife film-making. In November 2009 he became the Unit's first Creative Director.
Keith Scholey is a British producer of nature documentaries for television and cinema, and a former television executive. He is currently a joint Director of Silverback Films Ltd and Studio Silverback Ltd.
Life Story is a British natural-history television series co-produced by the BBC Natural History Unit, Discovery Channel and France Télévisions in association with The Open University. The six-part series, narrated by David Attenborough, reveals the challenges faced by individual animals at different stages of their lives.
Julian Hector is a British television and radio producer and executive who was Head of the BBC Natural History Unit. During his career, he has been producer of David Attenborough's Life Stories on BBC Radio 4, producer of the Tigers about the House television series, writer and producer of the Lakes and Rivers episode in the BBC’s Wild Africa series, producer of World on the Move, and instrumental in establishing the BBC's Tweet of the Day. He was described by Sir David Attenborough as ‘one of the most inventive producers in radio’ and during his award of an honorary doctorate from the University of Bristol was credited with bringing ‘live natural history programming to Radio 4’.
Planet Earth II is a 2016 British nature documentary series co-produced by the BBC Natural History Unit, BBC Studios, BBC America, ZDF, France Télévisions and Tencent and distributed by BBC Worldwide. It functions as a sequel to Planet Earth, which was broadcast in 2006. The series is presented and narrated by Sir David Attenborough with the main theme music composed by Hans Zimmer.
Planet Earth is a television and film documentary franchise produced and broadcast by the BBC. The franchise began in 2001 with the success of The Blue Planet. As of 2017, The Blue Planet has spawned 5 series and one feature film.
Seven Worlds, One Planet is a television documentary series co-produced by the BBC Studios Natural History Unit, BBC America, ZDF, France Télévisions, Tencent Penguin Pictures and CCTV-9. The seven-part series, in which each episode focuses on one continent, premiered on BBC One on 27 October 2019 and is narrated and presented by naturalist Sir David Attenborough. Over 1,500 people worked on the series, which was filmed over 1,794 days, with 92 shoots across 41 countries.
Frozen Planet II is a 2022 British nature documentary series produced by the BBC Studios Natural History Unit in co-production with The Open University, BBC America, ZDF, France Télévisions, NHK and Migu Video. It functions as a sequel to the 2011 documentary series FrozenPlanet. The series is presented and narrated by Sir David Attenborough with the music composed by Hans Zimmer, Adam Lukas and James Everingham, including a theme featuring the vocals of singer-songwriter Aurora.
Parsons, C. (1982) True to Nature: Christopher Parsons looks back on 25 years of wildlife filming with the BBC Natural History Unit. Patrick Stephens Limited. ISBN0-85059-530-4
Attenborough, D. (2002) Life on Air: Memoirs of a Broadcaster. BBC Books. ISBN0-563-48780-1
BBC/2 entertainGreat Wildlife Moments DVD (2003). Bonus feature: Heads of the BBC Natural History Unit
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