The Community Programme Unit was established by the BBC to help members of the public create programmes to be broadcast nationally. The unit was established in 1972 by producers such as

Rowan Ayers Rowan Ayers (16 June 1922 – 5 January 2008) was a British television producer and executive. He was best known as producer of BBC's ''Line-Up'' and ''Late Night Line-Up'' in the 1960s. He was the originator of BBCs influential late night rock ...

having won the approval of the Director of Programmes

David Attenborough Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural histor ...

for a series of ten programmes called '' Open Door'' for

BBC 2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream ...

. The first programme was broadcast on 2 April 1973. ''Open Door'' evolved into '' Open Space'' which by the end of the 1980s was receiving up to twenty proposals from the public for programmes every week. These proposals were evaluated by the CPU's staff three or four times a year and a

shortlist A short list or shortlist is a list of candidates for a job, prize, award, political position, etc., that has been reduced from a longer list of candidates (sometimes via intermediate lists known as "long lists"). The length of short lists varie ...

of six to eight potential programmes to fill the next series was drawn up. The programmes would usually highlight a group or point of view that was under-represented or misrepresented in British broadcasting, With the increased availability and quality of domestic video equipment the CPU began to compile and broadcast a series of ''

Video Diaries ''Video Diaries'' is a BBC television programme produced by the Community Programme Unit. The series of programmes was created in 1990 by producer Jeremy Gibson. The programme's production team offered members of the public basic video training a ...

'' which in turn evolved into '' Video Nation''. The Community Programme Unit suffered from budget cuts at the BBC and had been disbanded by 2004.

References

Vox Pops – The BBC’s Community Programme Unit
– Fred Johnson

External links

–

BECTU The Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union (BECTU), formerly the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union, became a sector of the Prospect trade union in the United Kingdom on 1 January 2017 following t ...

report BBC Social anthropology 1973 establishments in the United Kingdom 2004 disestablishments in the United Kingdom {{BBC-tv-stub