Three-month old BBC Earth is on the hunt for more Asian stories. The channel, which kickstarted the new year with stellar results for Singapore, replaced BBC Knowledge in October last year, and is currently looking at increasing the presence of Asian programming on its offering.
This year’s Asian line-up on BBC Earth includes natural history series Wild Japan, a co-production with Japanese public broadcaster NHK. The documentary premieres on 8 February.
BBC Earth is also planning on-ground events, such as the Planet Earth concerts, in the region.
“Following Giant Screen movie Enchanted Kingdom’s success in Japan, we are also exploring how we can expand that experience to markets such as China, Korea and Hong Kong, says Ryan Shiotani, BBC Worldwide Asia’s vice president of content.
“In Japan, we have worked with SEGA on ORBI, a BBC Earth themed attraction in Yokohama and will be opening a second ORBI in Osaka within the first quarter of 2016,” Shiotani adds.
BBC Earth topped factual pay-TV charts in Singapore in December last year, beating six other channels in the factual set (source Kantar Media Singapore, among pay-TV 4+ audiences; ContentAsia Insider, 7 January).
The strong performance in Singapore has been attributed to shows like The Hunt, narrated by David Attenborough;Extreme Fishing with Robson Green; and Life Below Zero. The Hunt aired on the channel in Asia less than 24 hours after the U.K.
BBC Earth’s driver content is a mix of everything from landmark natural history series to documentaries that look at the planet from surprising perspectives, says Shiotani.
New titles for 2016 include Fishing Impossible, about a group of hard-core fishermen as they attempt to catch some of the world’s most elusive fish; Life Below Zero series four, about the lives of six people in the remote areas of Alaska and their daily struggles to survive in the below-zero environment; and Forces of Nature, which promises to explain what lies beneath Earth’s startling beauty and ultimately what makes our world work.
New titles for January and February are Lands of the Monsoon, which explores how life around Southern Asia both endures and depends on the mighty monsoon that annually transforms the land; and a series of health/wellness/food programming, including The Truth About Calories (13 January, 10.45pm), about smart eating without taking the joy out of food; The Truth About Meat (14 January, 1...
Three-month old BBC Earth is on the hunt for more Asian stories. The channel, which kickstarted the new year with stellar results for Singapore, replaced BBC Knowledge in October last year, and is currently looking at increasing the presence of Asian programming on its offering.
This year’s Asian line-up on BBC Earth includes natural history series Wild Japan, a co-production with Japanese public broadcaster NHK. The documentary premieres on 8 February.
BBC Earth is also planning on-ground events, such as the Planet Earth concerts, in the region.
“Following Giant Screen movie Enchanted Kingdom’s success in Japan, we are also exploring how we can expand that experience to markets such as China, Korea and Hong Kong, says Ryan Shiotani, BBC Worldwide Asia’s vice president of content.
“In Japan, we have worked with SEGA on ORBI, a BBC Earth themed attraction in Yokohama and will be opening a second ORBI in Osaka within the first quarter of 2016,” Shiotani adds.
BBC Earth topped factual pay-TV charts in Singapore in December last year, beating six other channels in the factual set (source Kantar Media Singapore, among pay-TV 4+ audiences; ContentAsia Insider, 7 January).
The strong performance in Singapore has been attributed to shows like The Hunt, narrated by David Attenborough;Extreme Fishing with Robson Green; and Life Below Zero. The Hunt aired on the channel in Asia less than 24 hours after the U.K.
BBC Earth’s driver content is a mix of everything from landmark natural history series to documentaries that look at the planet from surprising perspectives, says Shiotani.
New titles for 2016 include Fishing Impossible, about a group of hard-core fishermen as they attempt to catch some of the world’s most elusive fish; Life Below Zero series four, about the lives of six people in the remote areas of Alaska and their daily struggles to survive in the below-zero environment; and Forces of Nature, which promises to explain what lies beneath Earth’s startling beauty and ultimately what makes our world work.
New titles for January and February are Lands of the Monsoon, which explores how life around Southern Asia both endures and depends on the mighty monsoon that annually transforms the land; and a series of health/wellness/food programming, including The Truth About Calories (13 January, 10.45pm), about smart eating without taking the joy out of food; The Truth About Meat (14 January, 10.45pm), which explores the damage livestock farming is causing to the planet; and Tomorrow’s Food (27-29 January, 10.45pm), about the cutting edge technologies that transform how we grow, buy and eat our food.
What’s on the grid: Prime time on BBC Earth runs from 7pm to midnight (SG/HK) and is dominated by animals/wildlife and nature programming (weekly schedules, January and February).
The week of 4-10 January is made up of 32% (11.2 hours) nature documentary, 20.5% (7.2 hours) animal/wildlife factual, 15% (5.25 hours) health/wellness, 11.7% (4 hours) activities/sports, 8.8% (3 hours) people/lifestyle, 6.4% (2.25 hours) travel, 5.2% (1.8 hours) automobile and 0.24% (0.08 hours) action/adventure series.
Nature documentary Earthfight kicks off the prime-time weekday slots in the first week of January. The series airs Mondays to Fridays from 7.05pm to 8.05pm.
Other prime-time nature shows are Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean on Earth (Wednesday, 8.05pm-9pm), a three-part series exploring the natural history of the Atlantic Ocean; and Life Below Zero season three (Tuesday, 10.45pm-11.35pm), about people who live in the remote areas of the Alaska.
The animals/wildlife slate for the first week of January consists of Life Story season one (Monday, 8pm-9.05pm), about the lives of animals; and The Supervet season two (Monday, 10.40pm-11.30pm), about some of the hardest-to-cure pets.
For the week of 1-7 February, the schedule is 26.4% (9.25 hours) animal/wildlife factual, 21% (7.3 hours) nature documentary, 15.7% (5.5 hours) action/adventure, 15.2% (5.3 hours) health/wellness, 11% (3.9 hours) activities/sports, 5.2% (1.8 hours) travel, 2.4% (0.8 hours) science/educational and 2.4% (0.8 hours) people.
Prime time in February starts with Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan season two (Monday to Thursday at around 7.10pm to 8.10pm), about some of the planet’s most rare and life-threatening creatures.
The rest of the animals/wildlife series in the first week of February are Life Story season one (Monday, 8pm-9.05pm); Animal Super Senses season two (Tuesday, 8.10pm-9pm), about the extraordinary sense of sight in the animal world; Orang-utans: The Great Ape Escape (Wednesday, 8.05pm-9pm), about the orangutans returned to their natural habitat in the Bukit Batikap Conservation Forest after spending years in a rescue centre; and Tarsier Tails (Friday, 7.20pm-8.10pm), which looks at humankind’s smallest living relatives.
This article first appeared in ContentAsia eNewsletter 11 January, 2016