BBC's blog

Food & Drink returns to BBC Two this February with one of our most highly respected and best loved chefs at the helm.

Two Michelin starred culinary legend Michel Roux Jr relaunches this iconic series, sharing some of his favourite recipes and kitchen secrets and inviting us to engage in a debate about what we eat and drink.

Michel is joined by award-winning drinks expert Kate Goodman, who suggests a range of liquid accompaniments to compliment his dishes, from under-appreciated Portuguese reds, to the perfect cup of tea. With the help of each episode’s guest chef, Michel and Kate put together inspirational mouth-watering food and drink combinations and demonstrate how everyone can create the perfectly balanced meal. Continue reading »

BBC Two has commissioned a second series of the hit Geordie sitcom Hebburn, which will return in 2013 with a six part series and a Christmas special.

Starring Jim Moir and Gina McKee, series one won critical acclaim and opened to an audience of more than two million. It is created by Geordie stand-up Jason Cook and produced by Channel X and Baby Cow Productions.

Hebburn is Jason’s home town and this warm, true-to-life comedy based on his own experiences of growing up in the North East tells the story of the Pearson family and their son, Jack (Chris Ramsey) who has married a middle class Jewish girl, Sarah (Kimberley Nixon).

With series one ending with a second ‘wedding’ ceremony that was abruptly ended when father Joe (Jim Moir) had a stroke, the family faces an uncertain future. Sarah’s pregnant, Jack’s in a new job as Editor of the Hebburn Advertiser and his sister Vicki (Lisa McGrillis) has rekindled her relationship with pub singer Gervaise (Neil Grainger). Continue reading »

BBC Breakfast presenters Bill Turnbull and Susanna Reid, and Louise Minchin and Charlie Stayt have donned their best cycling outfits for the 2012 BBC Breakfast Christmas Challenge.

In celebration of a wonderful year of sport, the Breakfast team were set a sporty challenge this year that would test their skills on a bike, as well as their nerve – to take part in a presenter race at the National Cycling Centre’s Velodrome track in Manchester, in front of Team GB Olympic champions and thousands of cycling fans.

Divided into two teams, Bill & Susanna (pink team) and Louise & Charlie (yellow team), they were required to race on the track individually in the quickest time possible, before having their scores added together to give an overall team result. Continue reading »

Spies Of Warsaw is a thrilling spy story set in Poland, Paris, London and Berlin in the years leading up to the Second World War. French and German intelligence operatives are locked in a life-and-death struggle on the espionage battlefield.

At the French embassy, the new military attaché, Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier (Tennant), a decorated war hero of the 1914 war, is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of Warsaw.

At the same time, the handsome aristocrat finds himself in a passionate love affair with Anna (Montgomery), a Parisian lawyer for the League of Nations. Their complicated love affair intensifies as German tanks drive through the Black Forest. Continue reading »

The BBC is to broadcast all of England’s UEFA European Women’s Championship games when the team heads to Sweden next summer.

The deal will see live coverage of all England’s matches, both semi-finals and the final played out across BBC Two and BBC Three. In addition, all other peak time matches will be broadcast on BBC Three.

Following a hugely successful London 2012, the BBC is committed to raising the profile of women’s sport in the UK and building on its already impressive portfolio of events and related output.

BBC Director of Sport, Barbara Slater comments: “We’re delighted to be adding the UEFA European Women’s Championships to our portfolio of women’s sport. The response to women’s football at London 2012 showed that there is a strong appetite for it and we look forward to bringing our audiences the excitement and drama of another major tournament.” Continue reading »

The BBC today announced its iPlayer Radio app, launched in October this year, has been downloaded more than a million times. The most popular activity to date in the app has been listening live to The Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Nick Grimshaw.

BBC iPlayer Radio, the new dedicated home for BBC radio, has seen record-breaking audiences since launch, with around six million UK unique weekly browsers, an increase of 30 per cent compared to October 2011 and nearly a third of traffic from mobiles and tablets.

Audiences can now wake up to their favourite BBC station and listen on the move, discover the full breadth of BBC content across PC, mobile and tablet, and catch-up on programmes, clips and videos when they want. Continue reading »

Channel 4 and the BBC have reached an agreement which will see the transfer of broadcast rights to the 2013 IAAF World Athletics Championships pass to the BBC.

The BBC already has the broadcast rights to both the 2015 and 2017 IAAF World Athletics Championships.

The agreement reflects Channel 4’s acquisition, this year, of a significantly enhanced portfolio of major horse racing events from January 2013, including The Grand National, The Derby and Royal Ascot.

The acquisition of the 2013 IAAF World Athletics Championships will see the BBC continue in its extensive support of Olympic sports in the build-up to Rio in 2016 and which culminates in 2017 when the Championships will be held at the Olympic Stadium in London. It also adds to the breadth and depth of a current sports rights slate which includes major tournaments such as the Six Nations, Wimbledon, Formula 1 and The Open. Continue reading »

Jade Jones has been named BBC Cymru Wales Sports Personality Of The Year 2012, following the results of a public vote.

The award was announced at the prestigious BBC Cymru Wales Sports Personality Of The Year 2012 awards ceremony held at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff on the evening of Monday, 10 December.

At the age of 19, Jade Jones from Flint in north Wales won Britain’s first ever Olympic gold in Taekwondo, in the women’s featherweight 57kg category at the London 2012 Games. Having begun the sport at the age of eight years old, she credits her granddad Martin with making her the success she is today. Continue reading »

Last Tango in Halifax, currently airing on BBC One on Tuesday nights, has been re-commissioned for a second series by Danny Cohen, Controller BBC One and Ben Stephenson, Controller BBC Drama Commissioning.

Written and created by Sally Wainwright and made by Red Production Company, the hit drama series starring Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid has been receiving record ratings, making it the biggest new mid-week drama on any channel this year.

The series is attracting an average consolidated audience of 7.1 million so far, with last week’s episode overnight averaging 6.2million – and there are three more episodes still to air. Continue reading »

Holby City will be heading to Scandinavia in early January for a special storyline featuring Jac Naylor, who is sent on a mission to discover exactly what has happened to rogue leader Henrik Hanssen.

Jac is told that Hanssen is in his native Stockholm and is actively blocking a financial offer from a Swedish pharmaceutical company which would pump £40m into the hospital. She is then charged with the task of going to Stockholm, finding Hanssen and more particularly, finding out why he is sabotaging what would be a lifeline to the hospital.

What follows is a story exploring Hanssen’s past, discovering why he has been missing for the past few months, and also looking towards his future and whether he will indeed return to Holby City Hospital. Continue reading »