The BBC Genome Project is an online searchable database of programme listings initially based upon the contents of the ''

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in September 1923 by John Reith, then general manage ...

'' from the first issue in 1923 to 2009. Television listings from post-2009 can be accessed via the BBC Programmes site.

History

Prior

BBC Genome is not the BBC's first online searchable database. In April 2006, they gave the public access to Infax – their only electronic programme database at the time. It contained around 900,000 entries but not every programme ever broadcast, and it ceased operation in December 2007. The front page of the website is still available to see via the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

. After Infax ceased, a message on the website said that it would be incorporating in the information into individual programme pages. In 2012, Infax was replaced by the database Fabric but this is only for internal use within the BBC.

''Radio Times''

In December 2012, the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

completed a digitisation exercise, scanning the listings from ''

'' of all BBC's programmes from 1923 to 2009 from an entire run of about 4,500 copies of the magazine. They identified around five million programmes involving 8.5 million actors, presenters, writers and technical staff. BBC Genome was released for public use on 15 October 2014. The listings are as published in advance, and so do not include late changes or cancellations which were reflected on Infax. However, they do include huge numbers of early radio and television broadcasts, and "DJ shows" from

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and Contemporary hit radio, current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including ...

and

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the List of most-listened-to radio programs, most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 14 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the sta ...

which were rarely kept officially, which were not listed on Infax (which also did not usually include repeats of archived programmes prior to 1976) because they were not in the BBC archives. The issues were scanned at high resolution, producing

TIFF Tag Image File Format or Tagged Image File Format, commonly known by the abbreviations TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is w ...

images and

optical character recognition Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronics, electronic or machine, mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo ...

was then used to turn the text from the page into searchable text on the Genome database. The aim of this project is to allow researchers to be able to find out information easier and to help

BBC Archives The BBC Archives are collections documenting the BBC's broadcasting history, including copies of television and radio broadcasts, internal documents, photographs, online content, sheet music, commercially available music, BBC products (includ ...

to build up a picture of what exists and what is currently missing from the archive. Corrections to OCR errors and changes to advertised schedules are being

crowdsourced Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...

, with over 440,910 user generated edits accepted after editorial review as of mid-December 2018. Each listing entry has a unique identifier which may be expressed as a URL. For example, the first screening of ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...

'' is http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/8f81c193ba224e84981f353cae480d49. A broadcast programme may have more than one such identifier, if it was broadcast (and thus listed) on repeat occasions, or in different regions.

Missing listings

References

External links

BBC Genome Project (1923-2009)

BBC Programme TV Listings (2010-)
{{BBC BBC New Media Online databases Broadcasting websites Online archives of the United Kingdom History of television in the United Kingdom History of radio in the United Kingdom BBC history Databases in the United Kingdom