Panorama (British TV programme)

Did You Know?

• In December 2011, it was revealed that former BBC Director General Sir Ian Trethowan had met in 1981 with MI5 and SIS chiefs about a Panorama episode, showing a recording to MI5's legal adviser who suggested cuts.
• The original theme music was an excerpt from Sibelius's Pelléas et Mélisande.

History

Panorama first aired on the BBC on 11 November 1953, with a focus on investigative reporting. Its debut presenter, Pat Murphy from the Daily Mail, hosted just a single episode after a technical blunder went out on air. Max Robertson stepped in for the next year. The show began as a magazine-style programme, covering topics like art.

In September 1955, Richard Dimbleby took over as host, and the series gained the tagline Window on the World. Dimbleby remained in the role until his death in 1965. His son, David Dimbleby, presented the programme on its 21st anniversary, 11 November 1974. Other notable presenters have included Robin Day, Ludovic Kennedy, Charles Wheeler, and Jeremy Vine.

In December 2010, the BBC announced that the show would be relaunched without a permanent host. Panorama inspired a German political magazine of the same name, which started in 1961. Its original theme music was a piece from Sibelius’s Pelléas et Mélisande, later replaced by Robert Farnon’s “Openings & Endings.” From 1968, an excerpt from Rachmaninov’s First Symphony was used, followed in 1971 by an adaptation of Francis Lai’s “Aujourd’hui C’est Toi.” The most recent theme, arranged by Bojan Andic, debuted in 2023.

Notable programmes

In 1955, Panorama filmed Christopher Mayhew taking mescaline under medical supervision; the resulting programme was never broadcast, though footage and transcripts were later released. On April Fool's Day 1957, the programme broadcast a famous hoax film about harvesting the spaghetti crop, claiming it could be grown in viewers' gardens. Many believed it, possibly because pasta was not widely eaten in the UK at the time; when viewers called the BBC, they were told to 'place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best'.

On 4 May 1955, Malcolm Muggeridge interviewed Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. In January 1984, Panorama broadcast an episode claiming three Conservative MPs—Neil Hamilton, Harvey Proctor and Gerald Howarth—had links to far-right organisations in Britain and on the continent. The programme was based on an internal Conservative Party report compiled by Phil Pedley, Chairman of the Young Conservatives, and confirmed with a senior party vice chairman.

Attempts to contact some named MPs for comment were unsuccessful; Hamilton's wife Christine later described how she and Neil devised a method to prevent Panorama from claiming Neil had refused to speak. The programme was vetted before transmission by BBC lawyers, the head of current affairs television, and the chief assistant to the director general, Margaret Douglas. Two MPs, Hamilton and Howarth, sued the BBC and programme-makers. Director-general Alasdair Milne reviewed legal advice and declared the programme 'rock solid'; the board of governors backed defending it in court.

Stuart Young died in August 1986, two months before the libel case came to trial. New chairman Marmaduke Hussey spoke with the BBC's barrister Charles Grey, who Hussey says thought the BBC unlikely to win; Sir Charles Grey disputes this, stating that he and his junior both thought the case winnable.

Scheduling

Since the 1980s, Panorama's scheduling has often been debated, reflecting the BBC's duty to provide both entertaining mass-appeal programming and serious journalism. In February 1985, with average audiences of 3.5 million, Controller of BBC One Michael Grade moved the programme from its traditional 8.10 pm Monday slot to 9.30 pm after the Nine O'Clock News. Despite protests, it remained there until 1997, though successors Alan Yentob and Michael Jackson were unhappy with 70 continuous minutes of news from 9 pm.

In 2000, the programme moved to Sunday nights after the news, around 10.15 pm—labelled a 'graveyard slot' by critics—and the number of editions per year was reduced, attracting press criticism for Director-General Greg Dyke. In January 2007, Peter Fincham moved Panorama back to a prime time Monday evening slot at 8.30 pm, reduced to half an hour, partly in response to a demand from the Board of Governors for more current affairs in prime time.