BBC Genome Project

BBC Genome Logo

The BBC Genome Project is a digitised searchable database of programme listings from the Radio Times from the first issue in 1923, to 2009.[1]

History

Prior

BBC Genome is not the BBC's first online searchable database: in April 2006 the BBC gave the public access to Infax the BBC's programme database. Infax contained around 900,000 entries, but not every program ever broadcast, and ceased operation in December 2007.[2] The front page of the website is still available to see via the Internet Archive here After Infax ceased, a message on the website said that it would be incorporating in the information into individual programme pages.[3]In 2012 it was later replaced by the database Fabric but is only for internal use within the BBC.

Radio Times

Screenshot of an OCR error (since corrected) in Genome. The text, "Uza TarbuclC's Christmas", should read "Liza Tarbuck's Christmas".

In December 2012, the BBC completed a digitisation exercise, scanning the listings from Radio Times of all BBC programmes 1923-2009 from an entire run of about 4,500 copies of the magazine.[4] They identified around five million programmes, involving 8.5 million actors, presenters, writers and technical staff.[4] The listings are as published, in advance, and so do not include late changes or cancellations.

The issues were scanned at high resolution, producing TIF images and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) was then used to turn the text from the page into searchable text on the Genome database.[1]

BBC Genome was released for public use on 15 October 2014.[5][6]

The aim of this project is to allow researchers to be able to find out information easier and to help BBC Archives to build up a picture of what exists and what is currently missing from the archive.[7][8] Corrections to OCR errors and changes to advertised schedules are being crowdsourced.[5]

Each listing entry has a unique identifier which may be expressed as a URL. For example, the very first screening of Doctor Who is http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/8f81c193ba224e84981f353cae480d49 A broadcast programme may have more than one such identifier, if it was screened (and thus listed) on repeat occasions.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "About this project". BBC. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  2. ↑ "About This Prototype". BBC. Archived from the original on 13 June 2006. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
  3. ↑ "This experimental prototype trial has now concluded". BBC. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
  4. 1 2 Kelion, Leo. "BBC finishes Radio Times archive digitisation effort". BBC Online. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  5. 1 2 Bishop, Hilary. "Genome – Radio Times archive now live". BBC Online. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  6. ↑ Sweney, Mark (16 October 2014). "BBC digitises Radio Times back issues". Guardian.
  7. ↑ "BBC's Genome Project offers radio and TV archive listings". BBC. 16 October 2014. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  8. ↑ Sweney, Mark (16 October 2014). "BBC digitises Radio Times back issues". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 October 2014.

External links

Wikidata has the property: BBC Genome identifiers (P1573) (see uses)
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