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Press Releases
Why knowledge matters – the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½'s Knowledge Manifesto
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Jana Bennett, Director of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Vision, announced today a raft of new, high-profile factual programmes, speaking at a Royal Television Society event where she stressed the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½'s continued commitment to serious factual programming and outlined the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½'s new approach to its factual output; its "Knowledge Manifesto".
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New plans for factual output include:
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 More authored, landmark factual series from Andrew Marr on ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Two
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More business programming on ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Two, including a series on the story of the City and a series on how new technology is reshaping business
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And, in development, a peak-time science strand for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ One.
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Bennett also announced a raft of unprecedented science landmarks to broadcast between 2008 and 2010, marking the anniversary of the publication of Darwin's The Origin Of Species:
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Human Race (ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Two, Dr Alice Roberts) – the first time the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ has told the story of homo sapiens
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Human Planet (ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Two) – the most ambitious series the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ has done on anthropology and vanishing peoples
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Life (ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ One) – the story of the evolution of life on the planet.
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And in 2010, marking the anniversary of the founding of The Royal Society, the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ will tell The History Of Science (ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Two), the first time since Bronowski's The Ascent of Man (1973) that the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ has tackled the subject in a definitive way.
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All the science initiatives will be pan-platform, with a significant web and multimedia element, and be delivered in a way which can be used by schools.
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Explaining the background to the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ decision to reconsider the purpose of its factual output in its new Knowledge Manifesto, Jana Bennett said:
"Once upon a time knowledge was the privilege of the few. Now information has been democratised. That's a good thing.
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"But it raises big questions for the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ which has traditionally seen itself as one of the leaders of the national conversation about knowledge and what it's important to know.
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"In the world of the Wiki and the intelligent search engine, that traditional belief has begun to seem rather presumptuous. Who needs the wisdom of Auntie when you have the wisdom of crowds?
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"What I want to argue tonight is that the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ should be a leader in stating what it's important to know – not led by consumer need alone.
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"In other words, our role as a public service broadcaster is not defined by what the audience already likes; we have a responsibility to establish bridgeheads into new worlds of knowledge on the audience's behalf.
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"We should embrace the need to disseminate knowledge, but also play a role in defining the canon."
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Explaining the importance of the Knowledge genre to the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ (ie factual output such as science, history, the arts, current affairs, religion, business, the natural world and documentaries) and its purpose for audiences, Bennett defined the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½'s role as "promoting literacy": scientific literacy, civic literacy, cultural literacy, life literacy and media literacy.
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"Building literacy on this scale will not be easy. But it is one of the main reasons the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ exists. In my view, knowledge building is one of [the] ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ heartlands. If the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ doesn't have a commanding reputation in the field of knowledge building, then it's not the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½."
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Bennett also outlined the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½'s role in the multimedia age as not merely providing information but offering audiences a deeper understanding of the world, and stressed that knowledge programming must be for all the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½'s audiences across all channels and platforms.
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She said: "This cannot be an elitist mission; it has to be a universal mission."
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She also argued that factual programming should be about "not just the easy options in the universe of knowledge, but some of the difficult areas too."
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"Our ambition is to put Knowledge at the heart of the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ offer; to make clear its massive contribution to the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½'s public purposes; and to reassert its centrality to the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½-ness of the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½."
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Notes to Editors
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Full transcript of the speech.
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ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Press Office
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