I'm in Wilson B block,
I get lost on the campus very easily,
but I've managed to find
Dr Janet Sumner.
Hello.
I'm very excited to be talking to you,
because of some unbelievable
successes
that the OU have been having
on television recently.
Yeah, I work in the
Open Broadcast Unit,
which is the Open University/BBC
partnership unit.
I'm the learning executive
for all the science, technology
and nature programmes
that we do on the BBC,
and at the moment the BBC
are having a very big Darwin season,
in which the Open University
are involved.
We've just had a fantastic
recent success,
which has really showed us how good
Open University programmes can be,
on the BBC, at promoting the
brand image of the Open University
and encouraging people to take
their learning a little bit further -
beyond just watching
the programme.
The programme I'm talking about
is called Charles Darwin
And The Tree Of Life.
It was presented by everybody's
favourite, Sir David Attenborough.
It went out on BBC 1
on the first of February,
and it was watched
by a staggering six million people.
I was one of those people.
I remember it well.
That means that you were
one of the four people
who were watching television
that night,
were watching our programme
on the BBC.
One in four people
that were watching television,
were watching David Attenborough.
He's just such a legend.
I was watching that,
and it was flashing back to
previous times with him on the telly.
I love that. I met him recently
in Birmingham,
and he blew my mind,
cos he's as nice in person
as he appears on telly.
And you couldn't have
done that programme
with anybody other than Sir Dave.
I do actually know him well enough
to call him Sir Dave.
- Oh, really?
- Yeah.
Have you got his phone number?
No.
I've got his home address though.
Fantastic, so I didn't actually realise it
was an Open University programme
until the credits came up and you could
get, I believe, one of these.
We do this
on a lot of our programmes.
We like to trail a print item,
a really glossy, glorious print item,
that offers the public a chance
to take their learning a bit further.
So you've got wonderful pictures
on the front...
The tree of life, yes.
..on the back,
there's all sorts of extra material...
Courses as well.
..plus links to our courses.
That's a new course, Darwin
and Evolution. How's it gone?
That's S170,
we're promoting it on the poster,
and they had for the first registration,
they were given
a target of 400 students.
They are currently at,
I made some notes, 562 students,
of which 98 of those
are new to the Open University,
so that's just been
a fantastic success.
It'll run four times a year because that's
the way that short courses run.
So, we've just been really successful
in tying together
a BBC 1 television programme with
an offer from the Open University,
with registrations on a course.
So we're celebrating that
at the moment.
How you gonna follow this?
We are going to follow it.
On the 5th of March,
with two three-part series, that are
gonna run every Thursday.
From eight till nine, there's Jimmy
Docherty in Darwin's Garden,
reproducing Darwin's experiments,
followed by from nine till ten, Andrew
Marr on Darwin's Dangerous Idea,
about how it was used
in euthanasia and eugenics.
So, two very strong programmes,
both Open University co-pros,
and Andrew Marr, Andy,
is great to work with.
Oh, Andy as well.
Not the prettiest guy in the world,
but wow, he knows
what he's doing on telly.
We're very pleased with it.
Parts of them are quite dark,
particularly the Andrew Marr
programme,
and I think they'll be
thought provoking.
- Really?
- Yeah.
Awesome. I love news people
doing TV as well,
because it gives you
that sense of fact.
- Yeah.
- Excellent.
Do you want
the grand, grand finale?
There's more!
There's more, it gets even better.
In October we are co-producing
on a big blockbuster blue chip
natural history unit landmark
called Life.
It's ten hours on BBC 1,
all shot in high definition.
We've been filming it for five years,
and it's basically an amazing
new version of Life On Earth.
Oh, no way, how can you top that?
Well, I don't know. You can.
Believe me, when you see
these programmes, you can.
So, that's the grand finale of Darwin.
Well, I'm excited, you're still excited, you
must love your job.
I'm loving it at the moment.
- Thank you very much indeed.
- Thank you.
