MUMBAI: The BBC has inked a new partnership with Hull City of Culture 2017. It will mean the BBC will provide significant regional, national and international coverage of Hull’s year as the UK’s City of Culture.
The BBC will also commission a substantial raft of new content to showcase the arts and produce a major programme of activity in 2017.
BBC director general Tony Hall said the BBC would play a crucial role promoting UK City of Culture in 2017.
Hall said, “I’m proud to announce our partnership today. The BBC is going to be unashamedly ‘Hull-centric’ in 2017. We are really looking forward to working with the city to create something very special for audiences across the UK and around the world. I recently set out our case for an open, enabling BBC that supports creativity in all kinds of ways. I want the BBC to be at the heart of Hull’s big year because I recognise that by working closely together as equal partners we can achieve so much more.”
The BBC’s activities for 2017 will include:
1) A world-class celebration of poetry, performance and the spoken word - shaped and made in Hull and inspired by the city’s rich poetry heritage, which includes the likes of Andrew Marvell and Philip Larkin.
2) BBC Learning will be working with schools and organisations across Hull to deliver targeted projects to inspire and create educational opportunities for the city’s young people.
3) BBC Writers Room will be looking for writers - new and established - to develop stories inspired by Hull.
4) Some of the BBC’s biggest events will go to Hull during 2017 and the BBC will create new ones.
Further details will be released in the coming year.
The BBC has already begun building its presence in Hull. On 31 October and 1 November, CBBC Live and Digital will take place in Hull city centre. It will be a weekend of live broadcasts and digital activities aimed children and their families. The event is part of BBC Make it Digital - the BBC’s initiative to inspire a new generation to get creative with coding, programming and digital technology.
Earlier this year, the BBC’s Make It Digital roadshow attracted 17,000 visitors at the Hull Freedom Festival. BBC Radio 4 is currently broadcasting Hull comedian Lucy Beaumont’s first radio project, To Hull And Back, which also stars Maureen Lipman. Earlier this month, BBC Four broadcast a documentary about Philip Larkin, which formed part of the BBC’s poetry season.
The BBC’s Hull-based regional platforms, including BBC Radio Humberside and BBC Look North, are already providing comprehensive coverage of plans for Hull 2017.
Hull City of Culture CEO Martin Green said, “It’s wonderful to have the BBC, the world’s greatest cultural organisation, on board for Hull 2017. Our partnership with the BBC will allow us to engage the entire country and encourage people across Britain to look again at Hull and think again about what culture really is.”
