To be hurt and annoyed at being dropped by the BBC?

[Ladyof2025]

BBC contacted me asking me to speak on camera about an aspect of local history I happen to know a bit about. I agreed and spent the next few days brushing up on the facts and then writing and rewriting a script and reading it out loud again and again until I knew it by heart and could speak confidently to camera as though I'd never said it before.

I do not have a pretty face, and am in my 60s and rather podgy, but I went to the trouble of going through my wardrobe for the perfect outfit that flattered my podginess, and had my hair cut specially and put on some make up, so I could be the best possible version of me that I could.

The production team visited, took me to the site and filmed me speaking. I did it smoothly and confidently and was glad that I had put in all the rehearsal so I came across as knowledgeable, professional and confident of my material. They said my performance was perfect, thanked me profusely and left.

After about a week they rang me to say that due to time and space issues the section of the programme that featured my input had been dropped. I felt absolutely gutted, not because I want to see myself on TV but because I had used up a lot of my valuable free time for several days preparing and rehearsing for it (for no fee I should add).

A few months later the programme I was dropped from came on TV and to my utter astonishment an attractive, slim young lady appeared, at the same site I was filmed at, and she spoke the exact words I had written and rehearsed! I nearly fell off my chair - the absolute bloody cheek of dropping ME but stealing the script that I had written. Thinking about it, I realised that they wanted my expert input, but not my saggy face or ample figure.

AIBU to be hurt and angry?

Was it filmed in Harrogate OP?

That's what you picked up from OP's explanation about why she made an effort to talk knowledgeably about her specialist subject without making a fool of herself? Your lack of empathy and even a smidgeon of kindness is staggering.

Because many people share their knowledge as a way of spreading it and hoping to educate.

Not everyone measures importance in monetary terms.

Certain experts (especially university researchers) have public communication remits within their jobs or as a condition of grant funding. Being a talking head on TV is an excellent and low effort way of fulfilling that.

Just because you can’t see the value in sharing knowledge for the betterment of everyone, not just your own wallet, doesn’t mean there isn’t any.

I wonder if it was an inexperienced team. - if so they need to learn as well. @producethis is right that they didn't prepare you properly - the second they realised you had prepared and rehearsed a speech, however naturally you feel you delivered it, they would have realised it was unlikely to be usable. It needed to be conversational but by then it was too late as you had a very fixed idea of how you wanted it to go.

However I would have thought they could have tried a different tack once you'd done your bit, unless they didn't realise until they'd got the material back to base.

I would get back directly to whoever contacted you in the first place because they need to learn from their mistakes in how they set up interviews. You will probably get a standard reply, but it is still feedback for them.

OK...
If these where your words exactly you could take legal action against the BBC. They will have your recording (ask for it if they didn't give it to you - this is your right). This could be verbal plagiarism.

But first, speak to the producer (he/she could be difficult to reach, so maybe you need to write) and ask why you were not used and your words spoken by another interviewee. Do not let this go.

And, did the BBC give you expenses? Your time etc. If not ask for them.

Not in docs they don’t. In fact, where do they pay piecework for scripts? Never heard of that but would quite like to get in on it 😁

Ask the person you have been dealing with to send you a copy of your ‘take’ load it to social media along with the ‘take’ that was used. We all want to see it. It may even go viral, I’d go onto tic tic to see it! I know it’s a faff but please? You are quite right to feel hurt, angry, used. They could have asked you for content and acknowledged your input without asking you to present from the get go. Lying about not having time is not on.

I'm so sorry. Of course YANBU. And well done for exposing the BBC. I would confront them and ask for an explanation which probably won't get you anywhere. You could say you're taking legal advice as there is a copyright issue (someone else took your work) to give them the wiggins. Is the woman who did your piece well known? I'd be going after her too.

I am a producer, so ‘as a producer’ would be a more appropriate opener.

I’m not sure why you have quoted me, as I have written the same in my previous posts.

Of course people get dropped, but good practice is to explain to anyone who has given their time and expertise why the decision was made.

So in that sense, something untoward has happened.

There are actually lots of quite strict rules around the ‘with thanks’ section in the credits and it has to be signed off by the channel, so it’s not as easy as that.

Mumsnet is such an awful place at the minute.

So much for advice and support from fellow females.

Another interesting thread spoilt by other females.

Well, yes, I’m one of those university researchers, but I’m not going to spend days learning a script, or getting a haircut, plus while talking about my subject on tv is absolutely a useful way of disseminating it to non-specialists, it won’t be the primary way I’m disseminating it. I’ll publish it in peer-reviewed journals or a monograph. Being a tv expert is a useful convergence between an aspect of my role and something a tv/documentary needs — if I can do it without taking a big chunk of time out of my schedule, I will, but it’s not ‘to be on tv’, or the main way I put my research into the world.

The other woman did not naturally . She copied the recording of the OP talking about the topic which means the producers took the recording analysed it and gave it to a 'face' to learn and 'perform' it

The OP won't have the original though as it wasn't broadcast

They can’t. The footage belongs to either the production company or the broadcaster, depending on the commissioning terms.

In very limited circumstances we will provide clips for contributors but always with the explicit instruction that it cannot be uploaded to social media - unless posting on socials is part of their agreement, in which case it will be clips approved by marketing.

Either way, something that didn’t make the cut isn’t being released to anyone.

More or less the same isn't the same as word for word verbatim

I am also a University Researcher who could quite reasonably be asked to talk about my area on BBC breakfast - type programs. I have actually had media trainign on how to do this sort of thing.

I would absolutely do what the OP has done - make sure I look my best (find a smart outfit, iron something, style my hair, do my makeup properly), and that I know what I'm talking about (look up key stats, check I have coherent answers to their question) etc... I'd probably write bullet points rather than prose so it flowed more naturally but that's it.

I think you have acted perfectly reasonably and they have screwed you over OP!

It's not just "not impossible" it's very highly likely.

It's almost certainty exactly what happened

@WilmaTitsDrop

There is no script, otherwise they wouldn't bother interviewing randoms.
Clearly there was a script for the new presenter. The OP wrote it. That's the whole point of this thread

Well that's exactly what the second presenter did seeing they learned the script off what the OP wrote. That's the whole point of the thread

No they can’t.

Standard release forms - which even the most inexperienced runner knows to get signed before you turn over - include a clause that waives all rights over the contribution. Likeness, content, everything.

If she had refused to sign it, they wouldn’t have filmed.

This is the bit of the story I doubt. It will be two people working from the v same knowledge base (the facts/research) so it sounds the same but it really isn't

exactly as @Producethis says

@WilmaTitsDrop

The fact the OP took it on herself to write a script completely unprompted, was probably why they decided against showing it.

These things are supposed to flow naturally
Well they ended up with the opposite of what you suggest. The new presenter didn't speak off the cuff. They studied what the OP said, learned it by rote and repeated it. .

WTF. Get a life

The OP has said the information she covered was very specific to the location and had taken her years to dig out. It was not two people working from the same knowledge based, it was one person's knowledge that the BBC then used without giving her any credit. It is unprofessional of them.