Survival (TV series)

Did You Know?

• Survival was a founding partner of Wildscreen, one of the world's leading wildlife film festivals.
• For more than 20 years, SAL had a partnership with Oxford Scientific Films, which provided dozens of films for Survival.
• A collaboration between Anglia TV and The Jim Henson Company from 1994 to 1996 produced a children's TV series titled The Animal Show With Stinky and Jake, using animal behaviour film from the Survival library.

Structure

For many years Survival was produced by Survival Anglia Ltd (SAL), a subsidiary of Anglia Television operating from Brook House in Park Lane, London. In 1989 the unit moved to Queen Street, Norwich, near Anglia TV's headquarters. Productions involved months or years of fieldwork; a camera team typically followed a subject 'from womb to tomb' to create a one-hour Special and related half-hours. Surplus footage was held in a film library that grew to over 11 million feet and was made commercially available worldwide. SAL also operated one of the UK's largest wildlife stills libraries. Many leading wildlife photographers worked for Survival, including Des and Jen Bartlett, Alan and Joan Root, Dieter Plage, Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone, and others. Commentary was voiced by actors such as Orson Welles, Henry Fonda, David Niven, Anthony Hopkins, John Forsythe, and many more. For UK transmissions, narrators included Sean Bean, Richard Briers, Rory Bremner, Ian Holm, Andrew Sachs, Brian Cox, and naturalists Sir Peter Scott and David Bellamy. Prince Philip introduced or narrated three Survival films in the 1960s through his association with the WWF.

History

In 1960, Aubrey Buxton, who had introduced a regional nature show called Countryman on Anglia TV, saw a chance to turn it into a natural history series for ITV. The first episode of Survival aired on 1 February 1961, covering London’s wildlife. Buxton introduced it from St James’s Park lake, a derelict bomb site, and other spots he reached in his Bentley. That episode was called The London Scene, made possible with backing from the London ITV company Associated-Rediffusion. Buxton, a prominent naturalist who later became Anglia’s chief executive and chairman, served as producer and executive producer, guiding the series for over three decades. He was made a life peer in 1978. Colin Willock, deputy editor of Rediffusion’s current affairs programme This Week, was lent to Anglia for The London Scene and stayed to lead Survival’s creative team, writing or producing nearly 500 films over 30 years. His sharp writing style, combined with inventive camerawork and editing, created a genre known as “Pop-Nat-Hist.” For more than 20 years, a three-person management team of Buxton, Willock, and Mike Hay ran the series. Hay, as general manager and later executive director, handled budgets, logistics with field film-makers, and reviewed rushes. Sir Peter Scott, a natural history TV pioneer, introduced and narrated many early Survival films and served as scientific adviser.

Later years

The Survival unit moved from London to Norwich in 1989, a shift that coincided with internal restructuring and the effects of the Broadcasting Act 1990. Graham Creelman took over as executive producer and director in 1988, a role he held for seven years before later becoming managing director of Anglia Television. Petra Regent, who had been with the unit since 1982 as a writer and producer, succeeded him. In 1994, Anglia Television was bought by MAI and folded into United Broadcasting & Entertainment, where Survival and Partridge Films were combined under United Wildlife. During the mid-1990s, ITV began favoring presenter-driven wildlife shows, such as those with Steve Irwin and Nigel Marven. Survival Specials still aired and drew solid ratings, but their scheduling became unpredictable. The series broke its no-presenter tradition in 1995 when Gaby Roslin hosted a six-part half-hour show called Predators on Sunday evenings; despite good viewership, no second series followed. Granada Television purchased United's broadcasting arm in 2000, and in January 2001, just before Survival’s 40th anniversary, it announced the Norwich operation would close, cutting up to 35 jobs. Wildlife production would move to Granada Wild in Bristol. Granada explained the decision by pointing to shifting broadcaster demands, a market eager for popular documentary styles, presenters, and more science. Some commentators blamed the high expense of blue-chip nature documentaries for Survival’s end, while others voiced unease. The Guardian reported that insiders saw the closure as an attempt to be trendy, and the Independent called it a bloody cull.

Notable films

The London Scene (1961) was the first Survival and a landmark for television natural history, screened on ITV on 1 February 1961 and presented by Aubrey Buxton. The capital was chosen because television viewing was concentrated in urban areas, demonstrating how creatures like foxes, Arctic geese, herons and a puffin shared living space with Londoners. Associate producer Colin Willock later noted that much of the wildlife footage was shot outside London. S.O.S. Rhino (1961) was Survival's first film shot in Africa and one of television's first major conservation films, depicting the capture by lasso of a dozen white rhino threatened by poachers in Uganda and their relocation to a national park. Uganda National Parks sold exclusive film rights to Anglia for £1500. Colin Willock supervised filming with John Buxton and Chiels Margach as cameramen, with a tense score from John Dankworth. Other notable films include The Year of the Wildebeest (1974), Safari by Balloon (1975), Mysterious Castles of Clay (1978), Two in the Bush (1980) and A Season in the Sun (1983).