BBC Four
BBC Four logo
Launched	2 March 2002
Owned by	BBC
Picture format	16:9 SDTV
Audience share	0.7% (August 2011, BARB)
Country	United Kingdom
Replaced	BBC Knowledge
Sister channel(s)	BBC One BBC Two BBC Three BBC News BBC Parliament BBC HD
Website	www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour
Availability
Terrestrial
Freeview	Channel 9
Satellite
Freesat	Channel 107
Sky (UK)	Channel 116
Sky (Ireland)	Channel 230
Astra 1N	10802H 22000 5/6
Cable
Virgin Media	Channel 107
Smallworld Cable	Channel 119
UPC Ireland	Channel 117
UPC Netherlands	Channel 53
Ziggo (Netherlands)	Channel 604
Telenet (Belgium)	Channel 566
IPTV
TalkTalk TV	Channel 20
SwisscomTV (Switzerland)	Channel arbitrary
Internet television
BBC iPlayer	Watch live (UK only)
TVCatchup	Watch live (UK only)

BBC Four is a British television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable.

BBC Four launched on 2 March 2002^[1], transmitting a schedule between 19:00 to 4:00. It shows "a wide variety of programmes including drama, documentaries, music, international film, original programmes, comedy and current affairs ... an alternative to programmes on the mainstream TV channels."^[2] It has a schedule dominated by repeats but is required by its licence to broadcast at least 100 hours of new arts and music programmes, 110 hours of new factual programmes and premier 20 international films each year.^[3][4]

History[link]

BBC Four launched on 2 March 2002 at 19.00 GMT, having been delayed from the original planned 2001 launch. The channel replaced BBC Knowledge, an educational and cultural channel which had undergone many changes throughout its lifetime; the latter of which consisted of documentaries and art programming: essentially a test of the new BBC Four schedule. BBC Four would rebrand this channel, and bring it into line with the well recognised BBC One and Two brands at the same time. Planning for the new channel, along with the new BBC Three, had been in progress since October 2000; however the incumbent government delayed approving the new BBC digital plans. The BBC Four plans were approved earlier, and as a result launched before BBC Three.

BBC Four was different from the old BBC Knowledge: the channel would be more heavily promoted with more new and original programming and the channel wouldn't be broadcast 24 hours a day. This is due to the fact that on the Freeview digital terrestrial platform, BBC Four is broadcast in a statistically multiplexed stream in Multiplex B that timeshares with the CBeebies channel. As a result, BBC Four broadcasts from 7 pm to about 4 am every day, with an hours down-time and promotions for CBeebies, before CBeebies channel runs from 6 am until 7 pm.

On 12 May 2011, BBC Four was added to the Sky EPG in Ireland on channel 230.^[5]

Organisation[link]

BBC Four forms part of the BBC Vision group, and as a result, the channel controller is answerable to the head of this executive department: George Entwistle, as of 2011. Entwistle himself was acting controller of BBC Four for most of 2007. The channel direction is determined by the channels remit, set by royal charter and the corporation's governing body the BBC Trust, and by the channel controller. These are:

• 2002–2004: Roly Keating
• 2004–2008: Janice Hadlow^[6]
• 2008–present: Richard Klein^[7]

BBC Four has an annual budget of £54.3 million.^[3]

Programming[link]

BBC Four’s primary role is to reflect a range of UK and international arts, music and culture. It should provide an ambitious range of innovative, high quality programming that is intellectually and culturally enriching, taking an expert and in-depth approach to a wide range of subjects.

— BBC Four Remit

BBC Four share of viewing 2002-2007 BARB figures

The first evening's BBC Four programmes were simulcast on BBC Two.^[1] BBC Four is notable for first showing Larry David's Seinfeld follow-up, Curb Your Enthusiasm,^[8] Armando Iannucci's cutting political satire, The Thick of It, The Chaser's War on Everything, Flight of the Conchords, Mad Men and Danish thriller, The Killing.

The channel broadcasts a mixture of art and science documentaries, vintage drama (including many rare black-and-white programmes), and non-English language productions such as films from the Artificial Eye catalogue, the French thriller Spiral and the Swedish detective series Wallander.^[9] BBC Four further supports foreign language films with its annual World Cinema Award which has been running since 2004.

On weekdays at 19.00, the channel shows a 30-minute global news programme called World News Today, simulcast with and produced by BBC World News. It screens a number of documentaries such as The Century of the Self and The Trials of Henry Kissinger. The channel is also home to many political travel shows such as Holidays in the Axis of Evil which features investigative journalism.

Drama has given the channel some of its most popular programmes, with The Alan Clark Diaries (2003) and Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! (2006) being among the highest rated, with over 800,000 viewers. The 18 March 2008, broadcast of The Curse of Steptoe brought the channel its highest audience figures, estimated as 1.41 million viewers, a 7% share of multichannel audiences between 9pm and 10.05pm, based on overnight returns.^[10] The official audience figures for the broadcast, including time-shifting, were later published as 1,625,000.^[11] Another notable production was a live re-make of the 1953 science-fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment, adapted from the original scripts into a single, two-hour version (though on the night it in fact underran considerably, lasting less than 1 hour 40 minutes), broadcast on the evening of Saturday 2 April 2005. Discounting BBC Four's previous live relays of theatrical Shakespeare productions, this was the first live made-for-television drama to be broadcast by the BBC for twenty years.

Another notable programme broadcast on BBC Four is Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe which contains reviews of current shows, as well as stories and commentary on how television is produced. The show is presented by broadcaster Charlie Brooker.

The channel is also curator and leader of the BBC Archive project whose aim is that the BBC's television archive is re-broadcast as much as appropriate so that the Archive can be enjoyed again and not isolated.^[12]

Some output from BBC Four (documentaries rather than foreign films) was for a time repeated on BBC Two in a 'BBC Four on Two' branded area, although this was often in a late night broadcast slot after Newsnight and has since been discontinued.

According to BARB the comedy panel game QI has the highest ratings of any show on BBC Four.^[13]

At the Edinburgh International Television Festival, BBC Four won the Non-Terrestrial Channel of the Year award in 2004 and 2006.

In 2012 Dirk Gently became the first continuing drama series produced for the channel.^[14]

Programmes[link]

Original programming[link]

• BBC Four Sessions
• Singer-Songwriters at the BBC
• If Walls Could Talk
• Britain's Best Drives
• Only Connect
• Birds Britania
• Britain by Bike
• Churches: How To Read Them
• Shock and Awe: The Life of Electricity
• Elegance and Decadancy: The Age of the Regency
• The Story of the National Grid
• Walter's War
• To Kill a Mockingbird at 50
• HG Wells: War with the World
• Twenty Twelve
• World News Today (simulcast on BBC Four and BBC World News)
• The Secret Life of Ice
• Hattie
• The Curse of Steptoe
• How to Build a Dinosaur
• Frankenstein: Birth of a Monster
• The Great War
• Sandhurst
• Jerusalam: The Making of a Holy City
• The Story of Musicals
• The Art of Cornwall
• Children's TV Trials

Imports[link]

• Wallander
• Spiral
• Mad Men
• The Slap
• Borgen
• The Killing
• Il Divo
• Inspector Montalbano
• The Bridge

Domestic repeats[link]

• Life
• Planet Earth
• The Blue Planet
• Yes Minister
• Yes Prime Minister
• All Creatures Great and Small
• Juliet Bravo
• Last Of The Summer Wine
• Sykes
• Butterflies
• Top of the Pops
• Monty Python's Flying Circus
• The Likely Lads
• The Young Ones
• Batman
• Fawlty Towers
• The Bear Family and Me
• The Life of Mammals
• The Onedin Line
• Tales of Beatrix Potter
• Walking with Dinosaurs
• Walking with Beasts
• Casualty 1906
• Casualty 1907
• Cranford
• Outnumbered
• Great British Railway Journeys
• Climbing Great Buildings
• The Sky at Night
• Pride and Prejudice

Films[link]

• South Pacific
• When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Monty Python's Life of Brian
• The Thirty-Nine Steps
• The Lady Vanishes
• Carry on Loving
• King Kong
• Cloud 9
• The Brides of Dracula

Children Classics (shown in 2007)[link]

• The Avengers (TV series)
• The Clangers
• The Magic Roundabout

Presentation[link]

The channel's initial series of idents were generated dynamically reflecting the frequencies of the continuity announcers' voice or of backing music and were designed by Lambie-Nairn. As a result, no two idents were ever the same. The first continuity announcer was Zeb Soanes.

When the channel first started airing, it used the slogan "Everyone Needs A Place To Think", but the BBC stopped using this several months after the launch. However the BBC Four logo and above slogan can be found, engraved on benches along the South Bank in London, between the London Eye and Waterloo Bridge.

In September 2005, the channel began showing new idents comprising a central BBC Four logo surrounded by four quadrants which show different stages of the same footage thus making for a sort of optical illusion; for example, a swimming pool where a person on an inflatable ring appears in the bottom-left corner, though ripples don't enter the remaining quarters. Although the image appears as one at the start of the ident by the end it is clearly four separate images.

See also[link]

BBC portal

	Book: BBC Channels (UK)
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• List of documentary channels
• BBC Four World Cinema Award

References[link]

External links[link]

• BBC Four at BBC Online

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Hans Rosling
Rosling at the 2012 Time 100 gala
Born	(1948-07-27) July 27, 1948 (age 63)
Institutions	Karolinska Institute
Alma mater	Uppsala University, St. John's Medical College
Known for	Gapminder Foundation and Trendalyzer

Hans Rosling (born 27 July 1948^[1] in Uppsala, Sweden) is a Swedish medical doctor, academic, statistician and public speaker. He is Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institute^[2] and co-founder and chairman of the Gapminder Foundation, which developed the Trendalyzer software system.

Study and career[link]

From 1967 to 1974 Rosling studied statistics and medicine at Uppsala University, and in 1972 he studied public health at St. John's Medical College, Bangalore. He became a licenced physician in 1976 and from 1979 to 1981 he served as District Medical Officer in Nacala in northern Mozambique.

On 21 August 1981, Rosling discovered an outbreak of konzo, a paralytic disease,^[3][4] and the investigations that followed earned him a Ph.D. degree at Uppsala University in 1986. He spent two decades studying outbreaks of this disease in remote rural areas across Africa and supervised more than ten Ph.D. students^{[citation needed]}. Outbreaks occur among hunger-stricken rural populations in Africa where a diet dominated by insufficiently processed cassava results in simultaneous malnutrition and high dietary cyanide intake.^[4]

Rosling's research has also focused on other links between economic development, agriculture, poverty and health^[5] in Africa, Asia and Latin America. He has been health adviser to WHO, UNICEF and several aid agencies. In 1993 he was one of the initiators of Médecins Sans Frontières in Sweden. At Karolinska Institutet he was head of the Division of International Health (IHCAR) from 2001 to 2007. As chairman of Karolinska International Research and Training Committee (1998–2004) he started health research collaborations with universities in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. He started new courses on Global Health and co-authored a textbook on Global Health that promotes a fact-based world view.

Rosling presented the television documentary The Joy of Stats, which was broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Four in December 2010.^[6]

Gapminder[link]

Rosling co-founded the Gapminder Foundation together with his son Ola Rosling and daughter-in-law Anna Rosling Rönnlund. Gapminder developed the Trendalyzer software that converts international statistics into moving, interactive graphics. His lectures using Gapminder graphics to visualise world development have won awards.^[7] The interactive animations are freely available from the Foundation's website. On 16 March 2007 Google acquired the Trendalyzer software with the intention to scale it up and make it freely available for public statistics. In 2008 Google made available a Motion Chart Google Gadget and in 2009 the Public Data Explorer.^[8]

Rosling is also a sword swallower, as demonstrated in the final moments of his second talk at the TED conference.^[9] In 2009 he was listed as one of 100 leading global thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine,^[10] and in 2011 as one of 100 most creative people in business by the Fast Company Magazine.^[11] In 2011 he was elected member of the Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Awards[link]

Hans Rosling at the Swedish pavilion of Expo 2010 in Shanghai

• 2007 – Statistician of the Year Award from the Swedish Association for Statistics
• 2007 – Jubilee Prize from the Swedish Medical Society
• 2007 – Knowledge Prize from the National Encyclopaedia of Sweden
• 2008 – Speaker of the Year from the Swedish Event Academy
• 2008 – The Big Debate Award from Dagens Medicine
• 2009 – Georg and Greta Borgstrom Award from the Swedish Royal Academy of Agriculture and Forestry
• 2010 – Illis Quorum, Highest Award conferred by the Government of Sweden
• 2010 – The Grand Prize from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
• 2010 – Gold Medal from Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences
• 2010 – World Technology Award in Design together with Ola Rosling & Anna Rosling Rönnlund
• 2010 – The Gannon Award for the Continued Pursuit of Human Advancement (US)^[12]
• 2011 - Grierson 2011 Award for the Best British Science Documentary, presenter in "The Joy of Stats"
• 2012 - Time 100 most influential people list

Selected publications[link]

• Thorson, A.; Ragnarsson, A.; Rosling, H.; Ekström, A. (2010). "Male circumcision reduces HIV transmission. The risk of transmission from woman to man is halved". Lakartidningen 107 (46): 2881–2883. PMID 21197783.  edit
• Hanson, S.; Thorson, A.; Rosling, H.; Örtendahl, C.; Hanson, C.; Killewo, J.; Ekström, A. M. (2009). Husereau, Don. ed. "Estimating the Capacity for ART Provision in Tanzania with the Use of Data on Staff Productivity and Patient Losses". PLoS ONE 4 (4): e5294. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0005294. PMC 2667213. PMID 19381270. //www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=2667213.  edit
• Von Schreeb, J.; Riddez, L.; Samnegård, H.; Rosling, H. (2008). "Foreign field hospitals in the recent sudden-onset disasters in Iran, Haiti, Indonesia, and Pakistan". Prehospital and disaster medicine : the official journal of the National Association of EMS Physicians and the World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine in association with the Acute Care Foundation 23 (2): 144–151; discussion 151–3. PMID 18557294.  edit
• Schell, C. O.; Reilly, M.; Rosling, H.; Peterson, S.; Ekström, A. M. (2007). "Socioeconomic determinants of infant mortality: A worldwide study of 152 low-, middle-, and high-income countries". Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 35 (3): 288–297. DOI:10.1080/14034940600979171. PMID 17530551.  edit
• Von Schreeb, J.; Rosling, H.; Garfield, R. (2007). "Mortality in Iraq". The Lancet 369 (9556): 101. DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)60058-0. PMID 17223462.  edit
• Elrayah, H.; Eltom, M.; Bedri, A.; Belal, A.; Rosling, H.; Ostenson, C. (2005). "Economic burden on families of childhood type 1 diabetes in urban Sudan". Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice 70 (2): 159–165. DOI:10.1016/j.diabres.2005.03.034. PMID 15919129.  edit
• Thanh, H. T. T.; Jiang, G. X.; Van, T. N.; Minh, D. P. T.; Rosling, H.; Wasserman, D. (2005). "Attempted suicide in Hanoi, Vietnam". Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 40 (1): 64–71. DOI:10.1007/s00127-005-0849-6. PMID 15624077.  edit
• Rosling, H. (2004). "New map of world health is needed. North and South is changed to healthy and ill and West to rich and poor". Lakartidningen 101 (3): 198–201. PMID 14763091.  edit

References[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Hans Rosling

External links[link]

• Hans Rosling on Twitter
• Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen at the 2006 TED Conference in Monterey, CA highlighting novel ways of presenting global statistics.
• Hans Rosling's new insights on poverty, from TED2007, featuring a surprise ending. (video)
• Video of Hans Rosling speech at the OECD World Forum in Istanbul
• Hans Rosling's blog
• Ola Rosling giving a Gapminder presentation at Google (video)
• Motion Chart Google Gadget
• Hans Rosling: Global health expert; data visionary profile on TED.com

Damien Rice
Damien Rice performing in Villa Arconati, Milan.
Background information
Birth name	Damien Rice
Born	(1973-12-07) 7 December 1973 (age 38)
Origin	Kildare, Ireland
Genres	Folk, indie pop, folk rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, record producer
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano, clarinet, percussion
Years active	1991–present
Labels	Vector Recordings, Republic, Heffa, Warner Bros., DRM/14th Floor
Associated acts	Juniper, Bell X1, Lisa Hannigan
Website	www.damienrice.com

Damien Rice (born 7 December 1973) is an Irish singer-songwriter, musician and record producer who plays guitar, piano, clarinet and percussion.

Rice was raised in Celbridge, County Kildare, Ireland and began his musical career as a member of the 1990s rock group Juniper. After leaving the band he worked as a farmer in Tuscany and busked throughout Europe before returning to Ireland in 2001 and beginning a solo musical career.

In 2002 his debut album O reached #8 on the UK albums chart, won the Shortlist music prize and generated three top-30 singles in the UK. Rice released his second album 9 in 2006 and his songs have appeared in numerous films and television episodes.

Rice's personal activities include musical contributions to charitable projects such as the Songs for Tibet, Freedom Campaign and the Enough Project.

Early life[link]

Rice was born to George and Maureen Rice and raised in Celbridge, County Kildare, Ireland.^[1]

Career[link]

Rice began his music career using the stage name "Dodima" Rice^{[citation needed]} and formed the rock band Juniper along with Paul Noonan, Dominic Philips, David Geraghty and Brian Crosby in 1991. The band met whilst they were attending Salesian College secondary school in Celbridge, Co. Kildare as students. After touring throughout Ireland the band released their debut EP Manna in 1995.^[2]
Based in Straffan, Kildare the band continued touring and signed a six album record deal with Polygram. Their recording projects generated the singles “Weatherman” and “Single of the Fortnight” which received favorable reviews.^[2]

After achieving his musical goals with Juniper, Rice became frustrated with the artistic compromises required by the record label, and he left the band in 1998.^[3] Rice moved to Tuscany in Italy and took up farming for some time, then returned to Ireland before busking around Europe.^[3] After returning to Ireland a second time, Rice gave a demo recording to his cousin, music producer David Arnold who then gave Rice a mobile studio.^[4][5]

2000 to present[link]

Damien Rice at Coachella in 2007

In 2001, Rice's song "The Blower's Daughter" made a top 40 chart.^[4] Over the next year he continued to record his album with New York drummer Tom Osander aka Tomo, Paris pianist Jean Meunier, London producer David Arnold, Dublin vocalist Lisa Hannigan and cellist Vyvienne Long.^[5] Rice then embarked on a tour of Ireland with Hannigan, Tomo, Vyvienne, and Dublin bassist Shane Fitzsimons.^[5]

In 2002, Rice’s debut album O was released in Ireland, the UK and the United States.^[6] The album peaked at #8 on the UK albums chart and remained on the chart for 97 weeks, selling 650,000 copies in the US.^[6][7] The album won the Shortlist music prize and the songs "Cannonball" and "Volcano" became top 30 hits in the UK.^[7][8]

In 2006 Rice released his second album 9 which was recorded during the two years prior.^[9] That year he also recorded at Abbey Road Studios for the program Live from Abbey Road.

2007 was a year of heavy touring with Rice appearing at England's Glastonbury Festival and the Rock Werchter festival in Belgium. That same year he performed with David Gray at the UK leg at Wembley Stadium, London and played at the T in the Park music event in Scotland. Rice also performed at the Latitude Festival in Suffolk, the V Festival in Stafford, Staffordshire, Hylands Park in Chelmsford, Essex and the Osheaga Festival in Montreal.^[10] He made additional appearances in Ireland and North America.

In 2010, Damien played at the Iceland Inspires concert held in Hljómskálagarðurinn near Reykjavík centrum.^[11]

Rice recorded a cover of the Juniper track, "Crosseyed Bear" for the compilation, Help: A Day in the Life. Rice's albums are published under his record label Heffa (originally named DRM) in Ireland and Vector Records in North American. Records released in the UK, Europe and other countries are published by 14th Floor Records via Warner Music.^[12]

In spring 2011, Rice featured on the debut album by French actress and singer Melanie Laurent. He appears on two tracks on her debut album En t'attendant while collaborating on a total of five tracks which feature on the album.^[13]

In November 2011, the compilation album "AHK-toong BAY-bi Covered" was released to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of U2's Achtung Baby album. AHK-toong BAY-bi features Damien Rice in a cover of "One," a stripped-down, piano-driven interpretation of one of the most popular U2 songs.^{[citation needed]}

In December 2011, his song "Cannonball" was used as the winner's single on The X Factor (UK series 8). Little Mix, the winners released the song.^{[citation needed]}

In May of 2012, Rice's song "Volcano" was covered by American Idol finalist Phillip Phillips, drawing praise from the judges and Steven Tyler specifically, stating "Thats the kind of song I could listen to over and over on my headphones (sp)." ^[14]

Personal life[link]

Rice participated in the Freedom Campaign, the Burma Campaign UK and the U.S. Campaign for Burma to free Burmese democracy movement leader Aung San Suu Kyi.^[15] He campaigned for her release by writing and performing the song "Unplayed Piano" at the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo.^[16]

In 2008 he participated in a music album called Songs for Tibet in support of the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso and Tibet.^[17]

In 2010, he contributed the song "Lonely Soldier" to the Enough Project which supported women's rights in the Congo.^[18]

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Live albums[link]

EPs[link]

Singles[link]

Film and TV contributions[link]

Rice's songs have been heard on numerous television shows including American Idol, The L Word,True Blood, Hidden Palms, Bones, The Cleaner, Jericho, ER, The Black Donnellys, The OC, Alias, Lost, Huff, Crossing Jordan, Grey's Anatomy, Criminal Minds, House, Spin 1038, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The Inbetweeners, One Tree Hill, and the Korean drama, Spring Waltz.^{[34][35][35][36][37][37][38][39][40][41]}

Rice's songs have appeared in films such as Reservation Road, Higher Ground, Closer, I am David, Stay, In Good Company, The Girl in the Café, Shrek the Third and Dear Frankie.^{[42][43][44][45]}

His music is referenced in the 2009 novel The Suicide Club by Rhys Thomas and his songs have been used in professional figure skating competitions.^[46][47]

Collaborations[link]

• "Be Yourself" with Jerry Fish and the Mudbug Club (September 2002)^{[citation needed]}
• Skylarkin' with Mic Christopher (November 2002)^{[citation needed]}
• "Get The Party Started," cover version performed with Lisa Hannigan (2003)^[48]
• "The Power of Orange Knickers" with Tori Amos (February 2005)^[49]
• "Don't Explain" with Herbie Hancock and Lisa Hannigan (August 2005)^[50]
• Live At The Olympia with Aslan (2005)^{[citation needed]}
• "Que Sera Sera" with David Gray (November 2007)^[51]
• "To Love Somebody" with Ray Lamontagne on Taratata^[52]
• "Making Noise" with The Cheshire Project ^[53]
• "There Are Debts" with David Hopkins on There Are Debts (December 2010)^[54]
• "Back to Beginning" on Lamb's album 5 (2011)^[55]
• "Everything You're Not Supposed To Be" with Mélanie Laurent (2011)
• "Uncomfortable" with Mélanie Laurent (2011)

See also[link]

• List of songs performed by Damien Rice

References[link]