Planet Relief was a proposed BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 television special

Television special

A television special is a television program which interrupts or temporarily replaces programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Sometimes, however, the term is given to a telecast of a theatrical film, such as The Wizard of Oz or The Ten Commandments, which is not part of a regular...

 dealing with the issue of global warming

Global warming

Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...

, originally scheduled for broadcast in January 2008. The programme, which had been in development for 18 months, was meant to be similar to previous BBC programmes such as Comic Relief and Sport Relief

Sport Relief

Sport Relief is a biennial charity event from Comic Relief, in association with BBC Sport, which brings together the worlds of sport and entertainment to raise money to help vulnerable people in both the UK and the world's poorest countries...

. However, it was cancelled

Cancellation (television)

In television, cancellation refers to the termination of a program by a network, typically because of low viewership and/or unfavourable critical reviews. Another reason why television programs can be cancelled is to make room for new television programs...

 before it was broadcast, allegedly because the BBC was concerned that it would be "biased" towards promoting responses based on acceptance of mainstream climate change

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

 science.

Concept

The original idea for Planet Relief was to increase awareness of climate change. The show, unlike previous BBC specials such as Comic Relief, was not planned to be a charity event, but to increase awareness, similar to Live Earth

Live Earth

-Background:Founded by Emmy-winning producer Kevin Wall, in partnership with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Live Earth was built upon the belief that entertainment has the power to transcend social and cultural barriers to move the world community to action...

. It was mainly inspired by Live 8

Live 8

Live 8 was a string of benefit concerts that took place on 2 July 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. They were timed to precede the G8 Conference and summit held at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Scotland from 6–8 July 2005; they also coincided with the 20th anniversary of Live Aid...

, with Planet Relief seen as its climate change counterpart. The programme would have involved an electric power station

Power station

A power station is an industrial facility for the generation of electric energy....

 being shut down for one night, for which the BBC had spent over a year negotiating, urging viewers "to turn off all unnecessary lights and electric gadgets for the evening." People reported to have been involved with the show included comedians Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais

Ricky Dene Gervais is an English comedian, actor, director, radio presenter, producer, musician, and writer.Gervais achieved mainstream fame with his television series The Office and the subsequent series Extras, both of which he co-wrote and co-directed with friend and frequent collaborator...

 and Graham Norton

Graham Norton

Graham William Walker, known by his stage name Graham Norton , is an Irish actor, comedian, television presenter and columnist...

, entertainment personality Jonathan Ross

Jonathan Ross

Jonathan Ross may refer to:* Jonathan Ross , English television and radio personality* Jonathan Ross , United States Senator, Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court* Jonathon Ross , former Australian rules footballer...

, the head of BBC comedy Jon Plowman

Jon Plowman

Jon Plowman has been a producer at the BBC since 1980, when he produced Russell Harty's chat show Harty...

 and environmental expert Matt Prescott.

Cancellation

The BBC scrapped the idea for Planet Relief on 5 September 2007. Peter Barron

Peter Barron

Peter Barron is Google's head of public relations for Britain, Ireland and the Benelux countries.Immediately prior to his appointment in 2008 the Belfast-born journalist had for four years been editor of the BBC programme Newsnight.-References:...

, editor of Newsnight

Newsnight

Newsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....

said, "It is absolutely not the BBC's job to save the planet." Peter Horrocks

Peter Horrocks

Peter John Gibson Horrocks is Director of BBC World Service. He was educated at the independent King's College School in Wimbledon and at Christ's College, Cambridge....

, head of BBC television news said, "It is not the BBC's job to lead opinion or proselytise on this or any other subject." There were also concerns that the power station shutdown "might overload parts of the [electricity distribution] network." The BBC did not, however, say that the show was cancelled due to bias, stating rather that, "The BBC is committed to programmes about climate change but after Live Earth what audiences say is they are looking for programmes of a documentary or factual nature to explain the complex subject."

Right wing commentators opposed the idea of Planet Relief, including Keith Waterhouse

Keith Waterhouse

Keith Spencer Waterhouse CBE was a novelist, newspaper columnist, and the writer of many television series.-Biography:Keith Waterhouse was born in Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

 who said in the Daily Mail

Daily Mail

The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...

before the show was cancelled that, "If the idea is still developing, we can only hope it gets lost in the darkroom. Heaven knows Comic Relief is puerile and patronising enough. Can you imagine what Cosmic Relief—in fact, they're toying with calling it Planet Relief, on which note I can only warn readers of a nervous disposition to avoid any enterprise containing the word Planet—is going to be like?"

Complaints about the programme also came from climate sceptics such as Martin Durkin

Martin Durkin (television director)

Martin Durkin is a television producer and director, most prominently of television documentaries for Channel 4 in Britain. He is managing director of WAG TV, a London-based independent TV production company. He has produced, directed and executive-produced a wide variety of programmes covering...

, who said, "The thing that disturbs me most is that the BBC has such a leviathan position … that if it decides that it is going to adopt climate change as a moral purpose, I have got a lot of trouble with that. I don't think it is the role of the BBC to spend my money on a moral purpose."

For their part, climate change activists attacked the BBC for cancelling the programme. Author Mark Lynas

Mark Lynas

Mark Lynas is a British author, journalist and environmental activist who focuses on climate change. He is a contributor to New Statesman, Ecologist, Granta and Geographical magazines, and The Guardian and The Observer newspapers in the UK; he also worked on the film The Age of Stupid...

 said, "This decision shows a real poverty of understanding among senior BBC executives about the gravity of the situation we face. The only reason why this became an issue is that there is a small but vociferous group of climate 'sceptics' lobbying against taking action, so the BBC is behaving like a coward and refusing to take a more consistent stance."

Another critic, Friends of the Earth

Friends of the Earth

Friends of the Earth International is an international network of environmental organizations in 76 countries.FOEI is assisted by a small secretariat which provides support for the network and its agreed major campaigns...

 executive director Tony Juniper

Tony Juniper

Tony Juniper is a British environmental campaigner, author and commentator most recognised for his work as Executive Director of Friends of the Earth, England, Wales and Northern Ireland and Vice Chair of Friends of the Earth International from 2000-2008.Juniper was the Green Party's parliamentary...

, said, "This is a very disappointing decision considering the huge potential for the BBC in helping us more quickly make the shift toward a low-carbon society. The science of climate change is very clear and if approached in the right way taking up this very serious issue would not compromise the BBC' impartiality."

See also

• BBC controversies
• Criticism of the BBC
  Criticism of the BBC
  The British Broadcasting Corporation has been criticized for various reasons, by the British government of the day, as well as from other political groups and various media outlets.-Iraq and the Hutton Inquiry :...
  
  
• List of television series cancelled before airing an episode
• Media bias
  Media bias
  Media bias refers to the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the...