I know, I know. I’m always going on about this. But I don’t apologise for revisiting it, because it’s so important.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Horizon, and the new series started a few weeks ago, and has already produced a couple of very interesting episodes. This week’s was an examination of whether a meteorite really did kill the dinosaurs. But, Horizon aside, TV science is pretty scarce. There are the various non-historical Adam Hart-Davies programmes, many of which are actually produced by the Open University. And, if we exclude nature programming, which I am, that’s just about it (Although, while I’m specifically exclusing natural history programmes, I’m looking forward to the Blue Planet followup, Planet Earth).
ITV’s science programming is basically limited to the odd weather/volcano type documentary (and they’ve been few or far between), whilst Five hasn’t really gone there yet.
Channel Four used to have the excellent Equinox, and as a brand name it still exists (there was a special on a replacement for the twin towers last month), although the regular seems long gone, and we’re left with Scapheap Challenge and its ilk to fill the void, maybe with the odd three parter about space squeezed out once a year, and something about Hitler and science.
This article (sorry, once again registration required) was written in June last year, and I don’t think an enormous amount has changed. Weren’t we told that Tomorrow’s World would live on as a brand when it was scrapped?
Earlier today, John Willis, the BBC’s director of factual and learning was quoted as saying science and personal issues could become the next big hits, and we learnt that programmes on energy and light, as well as the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s most famous work. I look forward to this good work.
So thank goodness for BBC Radio that regularly produces hours of science programming. Every week throughout the year, there’s Material World and Leading Edge on Radio 4, and Science in Action on the World Service. That’s aside from the regular documentary slots on both channels with limited run series, such as the current Losing the Past on Radio 4, and the various Discovery runs on the World Service. Radio gives us an enormous quantity of science programming, most of which is permamently archived, and we thank it!