It’s part of my job to read the BBC annual report so you don’t have to. Once we’ve covered astronomical salaries, other things come into play. Like the fact that out of the TV budget of £1.78 billion, only £31 million is spent on art. There is no breakdown of the budget for scientific programming, but it is clearly a low priority. Search for the word ‘science’ in the 280-page report and only a handful of mentions will come up, almost all about the BBC’s dedication to Net Zero.
Only two programs are mentioned: Universe with Prof Brian Cox and Green Planet with Sir David Attenborough (the latter is natural history, of course, but one that uses “the latest science”). And this week’s science offering, Super Telescope: Mission to the Edge of the Universe (BBC Two), demonstrated how little imagination there is in the subject outside of these big ticket shows.
The documentary told the story of the James Webb Space Telescope, which brought us this week dazzling new images from distant galaxies. The photos were breathtaking, but could not be seen until the last two minutes of the program, as it had been filmed beforehand. The focus here was on how the telescope was built.
All well and good, but the BBC didn’t know where to pitch it. With viewers with an understanding of science? Or at a beginner level? The producers went for the latter. Now there’s nothing wrong with making science programs accessible to everyone, but the result here was a voiceover where the narrator spoke… very… slowly, telling us that “although the sun is hot, space itself is cold”. Maggie Aderin-Pocock was the British contributor and gave information as to children. “Light travels at 300,000 km per second,” she said. “Which is pretty unbelievably fast.”
Fortunately, there were experts from NASA to explain things in understandable terms without treating us like idiots. One raised the possibility that the telescope could detect intelligent life. “What if we detect a sign of industrial activity? Technology? That goes much deeper.” There were fascinating ideas here that deserved a better forum.