BBC One - Contemporary Programming

Contemporary Programming

BBC One's remit is to be the BBC’s most popular mixed-genre television service across the UK, offering a wide range of high quality programmes. It should be the BBC's primary outlet for major UK and international events and it should reflect the whole of the UK in its output. A very high proportion of its programmes should be original productions.

— BBC One remit

In 2010, the top five watched programmes, at their peak viewing points, according to BARB were:

1. EastEnders 16,410,000
2. World Cup 2010 England Vs Germany 15,810,000
3. Strictly Come Dancing 14,280,000
4. Come Fly With Me 12,470,000
5. Doctor Who 12,110,000

Repeats made up 8.4% of peak programming in 2010/11, up from 8.0% for 2008/09. Programming on this channel costs an average of £162,900 per hour.

With a mission to provide programmes for all licence-fee payers, it has sport, news, current affairs, and documentaries. It has historically broadcast children's programmes (now taken from CBBC and CBeebies). The channel remains one of the principal television channels in the United Kingdom and provides 2,508 annual hours of news and weather, 1,880 hours of factual and learning, 1,036 hours of drama, 672 hours of children's, 670 hours of sport, 654 hours of film, 433 hours of entertainment, 159 hours of current affairs, 92 hours of religion and 82 hours of music and arts.

2,508 annual hours of news and weather (293 in peak, 1,049 of BBC News simulcasts) are provided by regular news programmes BBC Breakfast, the BBC News at One, BBC News at Six and the BBC News at Ten each including BBC regional news programmes. All three main news bulletins have a lead over their rival programmes on ITV and other terrestrial or cable channels. During the weekend period, three separate bulletins around these three time periods are broadcast and vary in length from 10–25 minutes. BBC One has broadcast overnight simulcasts from the BBC News channel since 1997; the latter in turn simulcasts the majority of all regular BBC One bulletins.

Each year 159 hours of current affairs programmes are broadcast on BBC One, including Panorama and Watchdog. Politics is also covered, with programmes including Question Time and This Week shown. Crimewatch, a programme appealing for help in unsolved crimes, is broadcast monthly.

Whilst nature documentaries such as Planet Earth are the most familiar part of the 1,880 annual BBC One hours of factual and learning, this also includes lifestyle-format daytime programmes and a number of reality television formats and the One Life strand.

BBC One broadcasts 1,036 hours of drama each year, more than any other BBC channel. There are four half-hour episodes of EastEnders each week (not shown on Wednesdays), with an omnibus episode at the weekend, plus hospital dramas Casualty and Holby City. Other popular dramas on BBC One include crime dramas such as New Tricks, a programme of which even episode repeats have beaten ITV ratings on numerous occasions.

BBC One has traditionally been the home of children's television, Blue Peter had been broadcast on the channel prior to the Children's BBC strand, and sections such as the pre-school Watch with Mother being transmitted on the channel for several decades. This became more pronounced with the launch of Children's BBC, later renamed "CBBC". This new strand was broadcast primarily on BBC One in the late afternoons, as well as Saturday and Sunday mornings also such as Going Live! and Live & Kicking, each lasting two to three hours. The launch in 2002 of dedicated digital channels for this content —the CBBC Channel and CBeebies—did not affect this provision. Combined with BBC Two, the channel broadcast 2,195 hours of children's programmes in 2010, mostly in the late afternoons on weekdays. Saturday morning children's programming moved to BBC Two in 2006 following a three-month trial.

Sports coverage on BBC One includes Premier League football highlights on Match of the Day, The Championships, Wimbledon, horse racing such as the Grand National, the London Marathon, and other international athletics and swimming events, the Olympic Games, Rugby League, Rugby Union, Snooker tournaments, and more. The BBC shows The Football League Show for Football League highlights and League Cup coverage. Formula 1 motor racing is also shown, Saturday's qualifying and Sunday's main race.

On 18 January 2010, the BBC introduced a local Football League highlight show called Late Kick Off. The BBC also shows the Football League Cup final, and ten Football League matches live from the 2009/10 season. The BBC showed the 2010 FIFA World Cup, splitting the group stage matches with ITV. The BBC had first pick of matches from the second round.

British and international films are broadcast for 654 hours each year on BBC One. This is mainly late-night fillers with some box office hits at Christmas and holiday periods. Films are sometimes used to fill the Saturday evening slot when no sport or entertainment programmes are due to be aired.

Entertainment programming on BBC One includes game shows such as the National Lottery, Total Wipeout, Strictly Come Dancing and chat shows such as The Graham Norton Show.

The annual 92 hours of religious programming comprise weekly editions of recorded Songs of Praise, Christian services and other shows from independent production companies. Mentorn Oxford produces Heart and Soul, described as “a new multi-faith programme featuring a panel and a studio audience”, followed by Life from the Loft which is made by the Leeds-based company True North. In 2005 BBC One was criticised for reducing the amount of religious programming, previously 101 hours per year.

BBC One broadcasts many comedy programmes, often on Friday nights. These have included the stand-up comedy show Live at the Apollo, sitcom Outnumbered, and satirical quiz show Have I Got News For You. Saturday evening is also a popular slot for a comedy show such as Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow and The Armstrong and Miller Show.

As the weekly popular music chart programme Top of the Pops was dropped in 2006 (except for the Christmas Day edition), BBC One broadcast 49 hours of music and arts programming in 2010. The majority of this was Imagine, presented by Alan Yentob, and classical music concerts, in particular some of the BBC Proms.

BBC One's daytime line-up was a major factor in it overtaking ITV as the most popular channel in 2000, a position it has retained. The morning daytime line-up consists of lifestyle shows, such as Homes Under the Hammer and Bargain Hunt, the afternoons contain drama with daily soap Doctors and classic US drama, such as Diagnosis: Murder. Sometimes a drama such as Land Girls is shown in the afternoons.

Between 15:05 and 17:05 is the CBeebies/CBBC broadcasting strand, with its own visual identity. Historically, BBC One's most popular daytime programme was Neighbours, with audience figures approaching five million. On 11 February 2008, BBC One dropped Neighbours and the programme has since been broadcast on Channel 5. In its place the quiz show The Weakest Link, moved from BBC Two, later replaced in 2011 by Pointless.

On 16 May 2012, the BBC announced the children's block of shows would be moved permantely to CBBC and CBeebies after the Digital Switchover.