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?

You will agree that nobody just wakes up one morning with specific expertise? OP didn't just rattle her head until the names popped out. She got that information from somewhere. Obviously using the exact same order is suspect, but the information is clearly out there somewhere to fact check. OP didn't just guess the names from nowhere.

So how do you suggest OP 'just knows' without ever finding the relevant information out herself? Did it just materialise from nowhere?

You are very, very oddly fixated on this. The OP is just as likely to be right as wrong. But your doggedness to be ‘right’ is quite unusual.

Did you mean to quote me? Read my post again. That isn't what I said. "Just knows" is not a quote from me.

So many information retrieval options that are not easily accessible to the public/BBC. Local archives. School archives. Company archives. Pamphlets produced decades ago lingering in someone's loft. Fellow local historians who have amassed a private archive over decades.

I've been working in local history for over 15 years and it's amazing what can come out of the woodwork.

Wow. And to think the OP thinks she's been treated like shite.

That did seem an unnecessarily ...forceful response to a reasonable question from @LlamaDharma

Most people have heard of local archives.

Many people are aware of private as well as public collections, and the concept of individuals with specific interests who are local authorities.

It's not entirely clear why it would be totally impossible for any interested person other than the OP to have discovered this information.

(Edit to say that I do not think OP was wrong to be upset at the poor communication from the BBC originally)

I’ve only just joined the thread actually. I found the attitude and rudeness spewed at me by OP for asking a simple question unnecessary and responded to her attack on me. Call that odd or fixated it whatever you like. Well done you eh? 👍

You know what, never mind.

Best of luck OP.

"Never mind"

I agree.

It was an exceptionally rude and unwarranted reply from the OP. The more this goes on, the more I can see how deeply affected the OP is by what happened with the piece to camera, and her not being used in the way she thought she would be.

I have asked several times what her motivation was for taking part, but have not been told. I have asked if it was any comfort knowing that at least her material was used in a lesser format to raise awareness of her cause, and that too had no reply.

Seemingly, someone is very, very hurt for putting a lot of time & effort into something, expecting to get a lot more credit for it than she did. And I understand that. I'm only sorry that the posts which provided objective and useful information as to why it may have been so, and how to move forward in an effective manner have been labeled as a pile-on. Goodness knows there were a disproportionate many more who all sympathized and insisted she take it further, so it's not as if she didn't get the type of support she was actually seeking, too.

However she does it, she has to come to terms with it and move on from it, because it's just not worth allowing it to consume the rest of her life. I only wish I could make her pain go away, but I don't think anyone can.

How would anyone find your name if you were dropped from the programme? Finding the programme will not reveal your name. That's the whole point.

People find it difficult to understand because you haven't explained how you could possibly know for certain that no-one else is capable of doing the same research you did, or coming across the same information? Fair enough if it was a source that absolutely no-one else had access to, but you aren\t saying that. You could surely give some explanation without revealing anything personal about yourself?

With every respect, your first post said "she spoke the exact words I had written and rehearsed."

And your follow-up says "not every single word was exactly the same.

You were, at least, exaggerating in the first post.

You're now suggesting that the blue van you mentioned may not have been a blue van, and that the details you have shared don't matter.

It's not a case of trust. I have no doubt of your feelings about the events. I have no doubt that someone else spoke the list of names that you had discovered in the same order that you had. The question you asked, however, was "Am I being unreasonable to be hurt and annoyed at being dropped by the BBC?"

The answer can only be "it depends on the circumstances." Unless we know the circumstances, it's unclear. Showing us the difference between your script and the finished programme would clear up the circumstances and wouldn't reveal your name.

How much of your "script" did this other woman repeat? Who was she? How was she credited on the programme? What other role did she serve on camera? Was she working for the BBC or an independent prodco?

You are missing the point asking for scripts and programme links and even questioning motivation.
As several TV producers on this thread have tried to explain, people get dropped all the time for various reasons and it wasn't a statement about the looks or expertise of the OP.
In this case the most likely reason would be overly formal delivery but as none of us are the producer in question, who was making a decision not necessarily based on criteria mumsnetters might expect, we will never know. Its not an exact science

As I keep saying, OP would be best contacting the people who booked her if she wants to take it further.
Nobody on here will be able to replicate the factors leading to the individual producers decision.

A good Producer would have called to thank & explain re: a significant contributor especially if unused.

I agree, which is why I would prefer the OP contact them, as they may well need to learn this.

It literally says in the first post on the thread that the producer did this.

If we were to see the script that the OP wrote and then see how some of that content was delivered in the final show, I expect it would actually be very easy to understand why the OP was dropped.

We would at least be able to see if the OP's claim that the BBC was "stealing the script that I had written" is true. I expect that is quite the exaggeration.

But the producer lied when they called!

Said the whole thing was dropped.

And then they used her research and failed to acknowledge that it was someone else's ideas/work.

No, you are hearing what you want to hear.

The OP says the producer said "due to time and space issues the section of the programme that featured my input had been dropped". That's perfectly consistent with the OP's input ending up on the cutting room floor.

If, in the programme, we were then to see several minutes of a BBC presenter quoting verbatim from the full script that the OP has written, then she would have a point.

If all that's happened was a passing mention that "Henry VIII, Charles Dickens and Vera Lynn all visited this house" then the producer probably has cut for time and space.

You don't know and I don't know what happened. We can't unless we see the programme and the script.

But the OP will not show us either. She wants us to think her "script has been stolen" but then backtracks and just says a list of names was repeated. These are two very different things.

If, in the programme, we were then to see several minutes of a BBC presenter quoting verbatim from the full script that the OP has written, then she would have a point.

What point would she have? As numerous industry people have explained repeatedly in this thread, she signed a release allowing the production company to use her contribution however they saw fit, for no reimbursement.

That means using some, all or none of it, giving it to somebody else to read or having Snoop Dogg rap the entire thing.

OP hasn't always reacted well on this thread but you seem bizarrely fixated on catching her out for something. Why?

BBC Good Food are not actually the BBC. It is a separate brand and now nothing to do with the BBC.

Don’t they have discarded rushes and keep the rushes? Won’t his contributions have been catalogued?

She might be able to make personalised iced biscuits fly? Elevating the humble digestive…

But isn’t it the norm to have ‘it’ all ready to go before you launch, whatever ‘it’ is?

I think Brooklyn’s sauce will be a success, but the focus on one product & narrow yet clear.

wrong thread.