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Frozen Planet: BBC To Drop Climate Change Episode Abroad 'To Help Sales'

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The Huffington Post UK   First Posted: 15/11/11 12:15 Updated: 15/11/11 13:13

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The BBC is defending a decision to drop Frozen Planet's climate change episode to help the show sell better abroad, in the face of criticism from environmentalists.

It is thought the episode of the BBC's hit nature documentary would be a particular turn-off for the US market, where climate change sceptics are a particularly vocal group.

British audiences will see the episode on the threat of global warming, 'On Thin Ice', in December but in the United States this will not appear, as the episode is being sold to networks as an optional extra.

Over 30 foreign networks have bought the series, but a third of them have rejected 'On Thin Ice'.

In the US, "elements" of the episode will be incorporated into the last show of the series, according to the BBC, but viewers will not hear the presenter, Sir David Attenborough, talking at length about the melting ice.

The BBC says it is standard to offer international buyers such flexibility, responding to claims that they were allowing countries to censor the climate change issue. A spokeswoman for the BBC said it was not be feasible to force networks to buy it.

Tony Juniper, former head of Friends of the Earth told The Telegraph: "It raises questions about the BBC’s overall environmental coverage, which is patchy and inconsistent."

The Frozen Planet DVD will be sold overseas with all seven episodes, as shown here in the UK.

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The BBC is defending a decision to drop Frozen Planet's climate change episode to help the show sell better abroad, in the face of criticism from environmentalists. It is thought the episode of t...
The BBC is defending a decision to drop Frozen Planet's climate change episode to help the show sell better abroad, in the face of criticism from environmentalists. It is thought the episode of t...
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Richard2
65 Fans
18:54 on 23/11/2011
Email 2496 explains why the Tyndall Centre funded the Harrabin/Smith seminars - the Real World seminars of the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme

"Mike Hulme:

Did anyone hear Stott vs. Houghton on Today, radio 4 this morning? Woeful stuff really. This is one reason why Tyndall is sponsoring the Cambridge Media/Environment Programme to starve this type of reporting at source."
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Richard2
65 Fans
16:01 on 19/11/2011
Programs such as "Frozen Planet" are typically described as Natural History Television. They are expected to accurately describe nature and the natural history of the planet. There is a wide audience for such programs.

There is less of an audience for WWF propaganda regarding CAGW. The WWF is clearly an environmental organization with its own political agenda.

Geoffrey Lean, in the Daily Telegraph, described Sir David Attenborough as follows: As “a very junior squirt” he helped start the World Wildlife Fund 50 years ago and has since supported almost every conceivable conservationist cause, while being particularly vocal on population growth.

Episode Seven jumps from presenting Natural History to presenting the climate alarmism of the WWF. This alarmism is based not on the study of natural of history, but on the political agenda of the WWF.

The public is now familiar with the WWF's influence on the 2007 IPCC Report. In particular, the public knows that the claim of the Himalayan Glaciers all melting by 2035 was based not on science or natural history, but on an unsourced report in a WWF publication. When serious climate scientists demanded supporting documentation for this serious claim, the IPCC was forced to admit that none existed at all.

It is one thing for television networks to accept natural history programs that discuss natural history in a credible way, and another to accept programs rooted in WWF climate alarmism. The public isn't going to listen. The public is going to tune out.
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HowthCastle
228 Fans
17:54 on 24/11/2011
Typical. If you don't have the facts, go for the character assassination and innuendo. Somebody called somebody a "junior squirt." Now that's persuasive!
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Richard2
65 Fans
14:42 on 27/11/2011
"They show that University staff vetted BBC scripts, used their contacts at the Corporation to stop sceptics being interviewed and were consulted about how the broadcaster should alter its programme output."- The Daily Mail
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Gottlieb
hated by left since 1973 and right since 1982
2315 Fans
 
20:16 on 18/11/2011
Business as usual, must satisfy the advertisers for the Discovery Channel.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
AgainstAnimalAbuse
The end justifies the means
239 Fans
21:39 on 17/11/2011
This is censorship at its best by corporate sponsors who do not want to expose you to reality on tv but will pay for ads on the so-called reality shows.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Robert Lee Harrington
There's still time to change the road you're on...
940 Fans
16:58 on 17/11/2011
PBS is funded by Koch Industries....you know.....the BIG OIL Climate Change Denier.

"Funding for NOVA is provided by David H. Koch, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and PBS viewers."

"Koch contributed $7 million to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) show Nova"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Koch
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
GhostOfFDR
You're on the slippery slope to socialism
652 Fans
03:24 on 20/11/2011
Yes. Of course the reason he does that is the effect the editorial process. Do you think Nova doesn't think about that $7M when it is looking for new shows to produce or buy for airing? David Koch definitely wants that $7M on Nova's mind when some producer is pitching a climate change episode.
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TheGreatLeader
9 Fans
13:29 on 17/11/2011
The BBC is so biased towards man made global warming that it is now incapable of making honest documentaries on the subject. US TV broadcasters know this already, hence their rejection of the On Thin Ice episode.
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Orkneygal
67 Fans
08:28 on 17/11/2011
The stench at the BBC over all of this is growing with no end in site.

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/16/smaller-world.html
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Richard2
65 Fans
16:22 on 20/11/2011
On Sunday, ... Britain's Daily Mail exposed the BBC's Roger Harrabin for having taken £15,000 from the very university at the heart the damning email messages demonstrating a nefarious collusion between the world's top climate alarmists:

A senior BBC journalist accepted £15,000 in grants from the university at the heart of the ‘Climategate’ scandal – and later went on to cover the story without declaring an interest to viewers.

Roger Harrabin, the BBC’s ‘environment analyst’, used the money from the University of East Anglia’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research to fund an ‘ad hoc’ partnership he ran with a friend.

Mr Harrabin, an influential figure who both broadcasts and advises other BBC journalists, later reported extensively about Climategate. - Noel Sheppard
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Richard2
65 Fans
17:04 on 21/11/2011
The Daily Mail has now pulled the story about Roger Harrabin and the receipt of 15,000 pounds from East Anglia, from its website.
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HowthCastle
228 Fans
18:29 on 24/11/2011
Wow! A reference to a screed on a right-wing website! That's proof!
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Richard2
65 Fans
02:05 on 27/11/2011
Labour MP Graham Stringer last night said he would be writing this week to BBC director-general Mark Thompson to demand an investigation into the Corporation’s relationship with UEA. ‘The new leaked emails show that the UEA scientists at the Tyndall Centre and the CRU acted more like campaigners than academics, and that they succeeded in an attempt to influence the output of the BBC,’ Mr Stringer said.
-David Rose in the Daily Mail.
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deborahc
11 Fans
13:03 on 16/11/2011
Knowing that the BBC CENSORED their series to appease the politically, ideologically biased climate change deniers in the US, and that whatever US network that buys it (PBS?) has chosen to buy and broadcast a censored version of this series, I will be sure to let that US network know that they've killed any interest I would have had in watching it. How naive am I - I'd thought the BBC was above pulling this kind of crap.
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Mickey Mouse 1
60 Fans
09:46 on 16/11/2011
It may not be feasible for the BBC to force networks to buy their product, but I bet its not for the want of trying. They seem to think that every home in the country has a television and can be billed accordingly!
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Richard2
65 Fans
05:58 on 16/11/2011
A third of 30 networks equals 10 networks that have rejected episode 7. Will the BBC please identify which 10 networks rejected the episode?

Where are the hotbeds of climate scepticism, so strong that networks are afraid of the public backlash to alarmist climate propaganda? Could it be there is no longer a worldwide consensus on CAGW?

Or is the problem with the commercial sponsers at the networks, who grow tired of the complaints from the public about 1990s style climate alarmism?

What was the stated basis for the lack of interest in Episode 7? Was there a lack of credibility to the ideas presented? What are the flaws in Episode 7?

Hopefully someone can dig deeper to uncover the real story behind this strange situation.
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HowthCastle
228 Fans
18:34 on 24/11/2011
No doubt it's the corporate sponsors. There are messages they don't want to have circulated.
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nottyhorse
6 Fans
05:27 on 16/11/2011
What a shame. This means that people won't get the broad view. They don't have to agree with it, but watching it can't possibly do any harm. There's tons of stuff we all watch on TV that we don't agree with, but we still watch it!
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Pghpam
6 Fans
01:54 on 16/11/2011
If that isn't selling out I don't know what is....certainly drops my opinion of BBC.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Richard2
65 Fans
05:24 on 16/11/2011
related problems at the BBC:

"An investigation by the Indy has caught the BBC red-handed selling airtime for millions of pounds. They are trying to spin it as “nominal fees”, but a look at the numbers and content involved is pretty shocking:

“FBC produced programmes for the BBC about Malaysia without declaring that it had been allocated £17m by the Malaysian government to carry out a global strategic communications campaign. The BBC also found that FBC had breached programme guidelines on a programme it made on the subject of Egypt this March during the Arab Spring uprisings. The Independent has established that FBC has worked for the regime of the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.”
Perhaps most damning is the fact that a BBC World documentary about climate change was sponsored by green crusaders Envirotrade. And of course “Envirotrade was featured in a positive light in the programme but viewers were unaware that there was a funding arrangement in place.” The BBC have ruled “that commercial, financial or other interests may have influenced the editorial judgments in these programmes.”

So remember that next time you swallow the Beeb’s “the debate is over” climate change line…
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alangriggs07
8 Fans
00:12 on 16/11/2011
If countries don't want to buy it, they won't buy it! There are a lot of sceptics in this world and who's to say climate change does not occur naturally anyway? I'm feeling quite chilly sitting here writing this comment!
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TheEmptyMonty
Astronaut. Daredevil. Wabbit.
717 Fans
00:21 on 16/11/2011
Climate change *does* happen naturally. It also happens artificially. The record of Milankovitch cycles clear shows a periodic change in climate, that is, an ice age every 100,000 years or so, then a rise to a high temperature about 4,000 years after its end, and then a slow cooling until the next ice age starts. The post-glacial maximum temperature occurred 8,000 years ago. We are meant to be, with slight up and down variations, in the same cooling trend we have seen for the past 8,000 years. And yet, we've seen temperature change 1.5 times greater then the medieval warming period, over 1/8 the time. Scientists have said since the 1800s that anthropogenic carbon emissions will warm the planet; the infrared characteristics of triatomic and larger gases are basic chemistry, nothing more. The science of global warming is easy to understand, and I recommend you research it.
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banana republican
Provoking Progressives with unwelcome perspectives
400 Fans
02:14 on 16/11/2011
For more evidence supporting the reliability of science-based the-sky-is-falling predictions, Google 'First Earth Day Predictions."
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Jenny Allan
9 Fans
00:06 on 16/11/2011
I object to being called a climate change denier!! The truth is that our dynamic climate IS changing all the time and always has. The last 3 million years have been mostly ice age. During the last 100,000 years there have been several interludes of warmer climate, including a Mediterranean climate episode in the UK, 12,000 years ago. We are now in an interstadial period, not as cold as ice age but not as warm as Mediterranean. Within these periods, typically lasting for thousands of years, warmer and colder climatic conditions naturally occur. My personal 'jury' is out over whether mankind's destructive pollution of earth and atmosphere makes much difference to world climates overall, but we are foolish to damage our environment.
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TheEmptyMonty
Astronaut. Daredevil. Wabbit.
717 Fans
00:33 on 16/11/2011
You're wrong on so many levels it's frankly staggering. I can't begin to fathom how you have the confidence so write such an uninformed post without taking five minutes to fact-check your delusions with Google, but I digress.

The climate changes in predictable, cyclical ways. Your "3 million years" statement is utter nonsense; Milankovitch cycles happen with 100,000 year and 400,000 year periodicity, and show the same temperature curve each time. Climate scientists aren't concluding anthropogenic warming just because the climate is changing, so don't be ridiculous. Climate scientists see our current temperature anomaly dwarfing past natural variation, and a basic chemical property of carbon dioxide is the undisputed cause.

I don't even know what you mean by "Mediterranean climate episode," since there's no such thing, but what do I know? A PhD in atmospheric chemistry isn't what it used to be. Regardless, the last ice age was in the process of subsiding, but Britain was far from a "Mediterranean" climate. The first settlers of the British Isles walked there on foot, across the English channel, because so much water was still locked up in glaciers and ice sheets that it was dry.
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Sunwyn Ravenwood
Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione!
975 Fans
09:49 on 20/11/2011
Jenny Allen is referring to a time in one of the interglacial periods when Britain was as warm as the Med. areas are today. Animals that live only in Africa today, such as rhinoceros and lions lived in Britain, their fossils are occasionally dug up today. Perhaps you should study paleontology before you make rude remarks to other people.

Just because you know a great deal about one subject doesn't mean that you know everything about every subject.
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TheEmptyMonty
Astronaut. Daredevil. Wabbit.
717 Fans
00:33 on 16/11/2011
Pt. 2

You are a climate change denier, and you apparently don't understand that the term refers to those who deny an anthropogenic influence. We've known of an anthropogenic influence for well over a century, and the theory was never controversial or politically significant until industry faced the prospect of regulation, and public memos from industry groups announced the initiative to cast doubt on the veracity of climate science.

I think you ought to show your "personal jury" some EVIDENCE before you ask it for a verdict. Due process and all.

TEM.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Sydney Light
168 Fans
23:37 on 15/11/2011
BBC? Massive sellouts? Disappointment would be too mild, how about disgust.
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