BBC
BBC’s ‘University Challenge’: A brand new series
MUMBAI: In a very interesting focused promotional campaign held a day ahead of the launch (on Thursday, 12 August) of a new series of its popular quiz University Challenge on BBC World, the channel offered their focused TG of students a chance to sample the show.
Based on a popular British TV quiz show that has been running since 1962, University Challenge can be viewed every Thursday at 10 pm, with an additional appointment to view on Sundays at 10 am.
University Challenge, hosted by the much acclaimed quiz veteran Siddhartha Basu and produced by Synergy Communications, promises to deliver the same rapid-paced excitement that viewers fed on last year.
BBC World’s strategy in showcasing this property is unique. Standing out of the clutter, and away from the conventional methods of advertising and promotion, the channel organized a live sampling of the show in four cities — Mumbai, Kolkatta, Delhi and Bangalore. The concept is for each of the above-mentioned city’s best to take on the reigning 2003 champions of University Challenge, Sardar Patel College of Engineering, Mumbai.
Thus far, the Sardar Patel team has pitted its wits and come out trumps against Delhi’s best (Law Faculty College of Delhi University) and Mumbai’s best (IIT Bombay). Banglore’s city best IIM Bangalore, however, beat the reigning champions hollow. The Kolkata leg of the “challenge” takes place today.
States Basu, “It was terrific to quiz the best college teams last year on University Challenge. This year we’ve had very enthusiastic participation from top colleges and universities from across the country, so viewers can look forward to the best of the best battling it out on the show, with razor sharp competition and exciting quizzing very much on the cards.”
The new television series will see participation from colleges across the country such as the IIMs – Bangalore, Kolkatta, Kozhikode; Delhi College of Engineering; the IITs – Delhi, Kanpur, Madras, Rorkee and Mumbai.
BBC World commissioning editor Narendra Morar says: “The new series will be even more competitive with heightened interactivity through an online quiz and SMS contents that offer the chance to win a trip to BBC World’s famous TV studios in London.”
MUMBAI: BBC Global News has announced a new partnership with Twitter Amplify, the social broadcast network service’s innovative video promotion tool.
This is the first Twitter Amplify partnership with a global news broadcaster. Commenting on the same, BBC global news director of digital & technology James Montgomery said, “This new collaboration harnesses our global reach and newsgathering capabilities to bring our advertising partners clever and impressive products. Building on the efforts of BBC America’s partnership with Twitter, we’re thrilled to bring our ad partners with us at the cutting edge of news.”
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BBC Global News will provide the global Twitter community timely in-tweet video clips that complement its global newsgathering operation. This partnership offers BBC Global News and its future brand partners an integrated cross-platform tool to reach new audiences on Twitter. BBC Global News operates BBC World Service radio, BBC World News television, and bbc.com/news outside the UK.
“What makes this partnership exciting is the amazing content Twitter users will get from BBC Global News, no matter where they are in the world,” said Twitter Amplify senior director Glenn Brown. “We look forward to working with BBC Global News to bring these programmes to market.”
BBC.com has already begun production of a new in-Tweet broadcast, #BBCTrending, a new series of innovative short form video broadcasts that will be presented by Anne-Marie Tomchak (@AMTomchak) and will launch later this fall. The broadcast will give users the inside story behind the latest trending phenomena on social media that day. #BBCTrending is distributed to the 4.8 million followers of the BBC international news Twitter handle, @BBCWorld, and will be enhanced by Twitter Amplify.
#BBC Trending will incorporate three key elements:
1. The BBC’s international social media reach and 24-hour video production operation
2. The BBC’s global newsgathering and monitoring operations, which provide both round the clock news reporting and monitoring of global TV, radio, press, internet and news agency sources, and
3. Twitter Amplify’s innovative real-time video promotion tool.
“Being a part of this new project is thrilling,” said Tomchak. As the face of #BBCTrending, Tomchak will be working with production units across the BBC to identify and build compelling conversations on what’s trending around the world. “On Trending, we’re tapping the most powerful internal insight tools and the massive BBC international newsgathering and language operations to decipher why and how trends are happening on social media around the world.”
In April, BBC America signed a similar deal with Twitter Amplify to offer the first in-Tweet branded video synced to hit series, including Top Gear.
