BBC sells Frozen Planet without climate change episode

Marie Reynolds

22 November 2011

Like me, perhaps you found yourself struggling to separate fact from spin last week after reports that the BBC dropped Frozen Planet's climate change episode to sell the series abroad.

Initially, of course, I was outraged. How could a broadcaster as well-reputed as the Beeb sell ground-breaking footage of our wildlife-rich poles without warning of the threat they face from climate change?

Cue extensive #FrozenPlanet debate on Twitter, and then a blog from BBC Worldwide - insisting most international broadcasters would show the final episode.

It claimed the reason non English-speaking countries didn't want the final chapter was because Attenborough speaks directly to the camera - they prefer the narration to be out of shot, to avoid dubbing.

I can believe that - you've only got to have the misfortune of catching a Danone ad to witness how voiceovers can annoy an audience.

But what of the US Discovery Channel who condensed seven episodes into six, choosing only clips from the final episode? Americans speak English. Are we really supposed to buy that they "only had slots for six episodes"?

Big questions need to be asked of US broadcasters who decide to cut the story short. If they fail to give the full picture on changes in the poles, they let down millions of people and the fluffy animals themselves.

For me though, the bigger question should be asked of Auntie herself.

American shores are no stranger to climate sceptics, but that's no reason to play to their agenda.

What the sceptics need is education - and the BBC's values are to "educate, inform and entertain." Why make the climate change bit a separate episode? It has become an optional extra.

Greenpeace's Ben Stewart said it all when he tweeted that leaving out climate change "is like pressing stop on Titanic when iceberg appears".

And we all know how that story ended.

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