Did the BBC 'drop' Frozen Planet episode because it featured climate change?
- 16 Nov 2011, 15:24
- Verity Payne
If you like Killer whales, seals and lingering shots of the
polar ice caps you've no doubt been watching Frozen Planet, the
latest spectacular from the BBC's Natural History Unit. Created in
partnership with the Open University, the series offers
previously unseen footage of polar life introduced by Sir David
Attenborough.
However, Frozen Planet has come under some scrutiny with press
reports suggesting that the BBC has separated the series' final
episode, discussing the effects of climate change on the polar
climates, in order to help the show sell better abroad. This has
been labelled
'unhelpful' by environmental campaigners, who accuse the BBC of
'
losing their nerve' and
pandering to climate skeptics. Climate skeptic commentators are
also none too happy,
asking why it is necessary that climate change be covered at
all within this sort of programme.
But is there any substance to these accusations? Geoffrey Lean,
writing in the
Telegraph, reported that the last episode of the Frozen Planet
series, entitled 'On thin ice', will cover science showing how
polar regions are changing as they warm, allowing narrator David
Attenborough to bring together "two largely separate strands of his
life - as the father of natural history television, and as a
growing voice of environmental concern."
The Frozen
Planet website describes this final episode:
"David Attenborough reveals how
scientists measure the changes in the polar regions and what they
mean for the animals and people who live there, as well as for the
whole planet."
In one line of his piece, Lean suggested that separating out the
series' climate coverage into a single programme may have had
something to do with "the BBC's desire to maximise sales by
avoiding controversy", and that "Attenborough's episode on global
warming is being marketed separately from the rest of Frozen
Planet."
Lean's comments were seized on by the Daily Mail, who
reported that the thirty countries to whom the series was sold
were offered the seventh episode, which features polar climate
change, as a 'companion episode'. The say that ten of those
countries will not show the this episode, including the US as:
"It is feared a show that preaches
global warming could upset viewers in the U.S., where around half
of people do not believe in climate change."
Frozen Planet will be aired in the US by Discovery -
one of several international production partners.
But it's not clear that offering the last episode as a companion
piece was due to the content. Unsurprisingly, the BBC deny that
this was the case - Caroline Torrance, Director of Programme
Investment at BBC Worldwide, suggests that it's production issues
which are
relevant:
"The seventh and final episode of the
series "Frozen Planet: On Thin Ice" is presenter-led with David
Attenborough in shot... Having a presenter in vision requires many
broadcasters to have the programme dubbed, ultimately giving some
audiences a very different experience. It is for this reason and
not the content - that we market the episode separately, giving
broadcasters the flexibility in how they schedule the
programme."
She suggests that "the vast majority of broadcasters" will show
the whole Frozen Planet series but does not clarify which countries
will get all seven.
It also appears the US will get material on climate change from
the seventh episode - according the the
Telegraph parts of the episode featuring climate change will be
interspersed through the episodes shown in the US - so it doesn't
appear that material about climate change has been excluded.
(Although the details are unclear - the series will be shown in the
US
next year.)
"...The BBC said that Discovery, which
shows the series in the US, had a "scheduling issue so only had
slots for six episodes", so "elements" of the climate change
episode would be incorporated into their final show, with editorial
assistance from the Corporation."
Dr Mark Brandon, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science at The
Open University and academic consultant for the series, told us
that the decision to put the climate science in one episode was not
down to marketing:
"To tell a BBC 1 audience about the
poles you have to accept that we live in a world where most people
do not recognize that the Arctic is largely ocean with a few metres
of sea ice cover, whereas the Antarctic is a continent covered with
ice kilometres thick. With this parameter in mind, how do you get
across the difference between the largest seasonal change on the
planet and the observations of longer term change? It's a confusion
that is deliberately made by many commentators. Telling the story
in its own episode will help viewers see the difference between
climate change and the natural seasonal cycle. Overall it will help
viewers to see the importance of the climate driven changes being
observed."
Dr Brandon also told us that a series about the Polar regions
could not give a full picture of polar science without covering
climate change, saying:
"When the series Frozen Planet was first
on the table as a BBC / Open University Co-Production there was
general agreement that the story the polar world has to include the
changes of the near future. The regions themselves are about change
whether seasonal or longer term so it should not be a surprise to
anyone that climate change is within the main body of the
series."
Dr Brandon noted that scientists have worked closely with the
BBC team to produce the programmes:
"In the same way that the best cetacean
biologists tracked orca for the BBC, some of the best glaciologists
have input into program 7. There is no need for hyperbole or
extrapolation and the audience deserve to be told what we have
measured right now, and how it the regions will change over a human
timescales. I believe that the BBC1 audience are crying out for
this level of accurate information and, it has been a brilliant
experience to work with a BBC team who are interested in working
only with robust and solid science."