主播大秀

鈥� the 主播大秀 project to digitise the Radio Times magazines between 1923 and 2009 is now live.聽 On the site you can find 主播大秀 broadcast information 鈥� 鈥榣istings鈥� - extracted from those editions. You can also search individual programme titles, contributors and synopsis information.

Our aim on this project is to curate a comprehensive history of every radio and TV programme ever broadcast by the corporation, and make that available to the public. Our first step has been this digitisation of the 主播大秀 radio and TV programme schedules from the Radio Times magazine; the next phase of the project is to incorporate what was actually broadcast, as well as the regional and national variations.聽 It鈥檚 one of the most important steps we鈥檙e taking to begin unlocking the 主播大秀鈥檚 archive, as Genome is the closest we currently have to a comprehensive broadcast history of the 主播大秀.

We鈥檙e really pleased to get the site live, not least because so many of you have been asking 鈥渨hen鈥�, 鈥渉ow soon鈥� and telling us 鈥渉ow useful it would be鈥�. The challenges in making available the 4.42 million programme records so far have been significant - you can read about some of the recent ones on the .

We need your help too though. We鈥檙e looking to you to help us to clean up the data. The scanning process - known as 鈥極ptical Character Recognition鈥� - has produced plenty of errors: punctuation in the wrong places, spaces where there shouldn鈥檛 be any or no spaces where there should, as well as fundamental misunderstandings about who did what.

We鈥檝e made it possible for you to submit an edit to us, as you use the site. We鈥檒l validate your suggested changes and publish the ones which are approved.

We鈥檝e also included a 鈥楾ell Us More鈥� form, at the bottom of each programme listing, so we can tap into the collective memory, insight and knowledge of our users, making use of the wealth of experience out there about our programmes, something we鈥檇 like to capture.

We also know that the schedule changed considerably on occasion, because of events in the real world and we need that information too.

Additionally, during the process of building Genome, we鈥檝e identified a few 鈥榗hunks鈥� of data that are missing from the database, but due to the way in which OCR works, didn鈥檛 get picked up in the original scans. So, we will be adding this in.聽

The Radio Times has been published with regional variations since 1926. The magazines we scanned and the data sets which have been included in Genome are not exhaustive, rather they represent the ones which we could access and which covered the greatest areas and variations.聽 In the future, we will look into the implications of attempting provide a more complete set of regional data.

We won鈥檛 be able to reflect what you send us straight away, but as we build on 主播大秀鈥檚 Genome, it will come in to its own.

Now that we have published the planned broadcast schedule, our next step is to match the records in our archive catalogue (the programmes that we have a copy of in our physical archives) with the Genome programme listings.聽 This helps us identify what proportion of the broadcasts exist in a potentially 鈥榩layable鈥� form, and highlights the gaps in our archive. 聽

It is highly likely that somewhere out there, in lofts, sheds and basements across the world, many of these 鈥榤issing鈥� programmes will have been recorded and kept by generations of TV and radio fans.聽 So we鈥檙e hoping to use Genome as a way of bringing copies of those lost programmes back in to the 主播大秀 archives too.

But, even if we don鈥檛 have an actual copy of the programme, we鈥檒l also look to publish related items in our archives, such as scripts, photographs and associated paper-work.聽 We鈥檙e looking in to the logistics of making some of these items available via Genome.聽聽 Clearly, this will in some cases be a long and painstaking task. The 主播大秀鈥檚 various archives contain millions of items spread over 23 archive centres across the UK, most of them in analogue form. It鈥檚 a big job, one we鈥檙e looking forward to reporting back on in the future.

What happens after 2009 when the Genome data 鈥渟tops鈥�?聽 Well the information held at starts in 2007 (the birth of the iPlayer) and as the Genome data is improved and corrected (by you!), we expect to start 鈥榖ackfilling鈥� the bbc.co.uk/programme pages with the Genome data.

Hilary Bishop is Editor, Archive Development, 主播大秀 Archive, and Jake Berger is Programme Manager, Digital Public Space

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