"The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. First broadcast on BBC One on 25 December 2011, it is the seventh Doctor Who Christmas special since the show's revival in 2005. It was written by Steven Moffat and directed by Farren Blackburn. Internationally, the special was shown on BBC America in the United States and on Space in Canada the same day as the British broadcast, with ABC1 in Australia showing it one day later.

In the special, alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) is the caretaker of recently widowed Madge Arwell (Claire Skinner) and her children Lily (Holly Earl) and Cyril (Maurice Cole) during their holiday vacation in 1941 Britain. The Doctor plans to take them on a treat to a snowy planet through a portal in a present he has placed under the Christmas tree, but Cyril opens it before Christmas and wanders through. While looking for him, the others learn that the trees of the planet are about to be melted down with acid rain for energy. (Full article...)

BBC journalist Nick Robinson (right) interviewing then-MP Michael Portillo close to the Palace of Westminster for BBC News in 2001.

The BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award is an award given annually as part of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year ceremony each December. The award is given “for outstanding achievement in the face of adversity”, and BBC Sport selects the winner.

The award is named after the BBC sports presenter Helen Rollason, who died in August 1999 at the age of 43 after suffering from cancer for two years. Helen Rollason was the first female presenter of Grandstand. After being diagnosed with cancer, she helped raise over £5 million to set up a cancer wing at the North Middlesex Hospital, where she received most of her treatment. (Full article...)

Jones in 2024

Gethin Clifford Jones (born 12 February 1978) is a Welsh television presenter. He was an active rugby union player while at Manchester Metropolitan University and, after graduation, he began his television career on Welsh language channel S4C as a presenter of children's programmes such as Popty, Mas Draw and the flagship children's entertainment show Uned 5 (Unit 5, 2002–2005).

In 2005, Jones became the 31st presenter of BBC children's programme Blue Peter. In 2020, he began presenting the BBC1 five-mornings-a-week magazine show Morning Live, broadcast from studios in Manchester. After a trial run ending in December 2020, the success of the programme has seen it commissioned as an all-year-round part of the BBC1 schedule. (Full article...)

The Egton Wing of Broadcasting House was completed in 2005 on the site of Egton House. A memorial sculpture, Breathing, for those killed whilst reporting on wars is situated on the roof.

Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know

• ... that the proposed BBC television special Planet Relief, created to raise awareness of climate change, was cancelled before it was made, for fear that it would be biased against climate sceptics?

• ... that Andrew Lloyd Webber was concerned about casting a dog in the BBC television series Over the Rainbow?

• ... that a 1927 Wolseley motor car used in the 2008 BBC television adaptation The 39 Steps was previously used in the 1960s BBC television series Dr. Finlay's Casebook?

• ... that Adam and Joe on BBC 6 Music won the Broadcasting Press Guild award for Radio Programme of the Year in its first six months of broadcast?

• ... that in May 2015 BBC Four aired "the most boring TV show ever" – an un-narrated, two-hour narrowboat journey on the Kennet and Avon Canal?

• ... that after criticising horsegiirL's "My Barn My Rules" live on air, the British DJ Arielle Free was suspended from BBC Radio 1 for a week?
• ... that technical issues in the minute before their November 2024 BBC Radio 1 performance meant that South Arcade had to set up while the presenter was announcing them?
• ... that soprano Sarah Fischer sang excerpts from the title role in Carmen for the very first televised BBC broadcast of opera music?
• ... that the pilot episode for a BBC series on a suicide prevention charity made some critics laugh?