A mission to help families change the way they shop - without changing their lifestyle. A host of money-saving tips and tricks to put hard-earned cash back in people's pockets.
Social & External
The people behind it
Melanie Sykes
Self - Presenter
Joanna Page
Steph McGovern
Alex Jones
Simon Dempsey
In-depth reports, test benches, buying guides, decoding of trends, news briefs and informative capsules. All done by a team of seasoned reporters on the lookout for consumer issues, both big and small.
Britain’s rich horticultural history is being lost. More and more front and back gardens are paved over - for development, for parking spaces, or because families don’t have the time or inclination to manage these spaces. The trend for easy-to-maintain lawns, patios and paving has also led to a decline in traditional gardens full of flowers, plants and trees to the extent that some of our most iconic flora and fauna have all but disappeared. Step forward the BBC’s most-loved gardening experts, who are determined to turn us back into a green-fingered nation once again.
Documentary series revealing the inner workings of Britain's railways, introducing the track-workers, train guards, drivers, police officers and management teams determined to keep the country moving.
The enormous popularity of recent British dramas such as Downton Abbey, Mr. Selfridge, and Sherlock, has led to vast interest in the real-life stories and history of the icons of Great Britain. Each episode of this series visits a famous British building or institution to explore its past and present, meeting a wide range of experts and historians along the way.
Follows five spendthrift protagonists, each with a different personality, in order to unveil their tricks for saving pennies on the dollar.
In a unique experiment, five teachers from China take over the education of fifty teenagers in a Hampshire school to see whether the high-ranking Chinese education system can teach us a lesson.
Documentary examining the winners and losers in Britain's booming gambling revolution.
Exploring the hidden corners of the UK in search of the best the countryside has to offer.
A politically charged mini-series researched and written by Duncan Campbell which saw dramatic Special Branch raids on BBC Scotland. An entire production office was loaded into transit vans and confiscated by the police. + One: 'The Secret Constitution' about secret Cabinet committees that amount to a secret decision making system at the highest levels of power in the United Kingdom. + Two: 'In Time of Crisis' about secret preparations for war that began in 1982 within every NATO country. This programme revealed what Britain would do. + Three: 'A Gap In Our Defences' about bungling defence manufacturers and incompetent military planners who have botched every new radar system that Britain has installed since World War II. + Four: 'We're All Data Now' about the Data Protection Act. + Five: 'Association of Chief Police Officers' and how Government policy and actions are determined in the fields of law and order. + Six: 'Communications' with particular reference to Zircon spy satellites ...
The story of the NHS in unprecedented times.
The story of the permanently changing landscape and its wildlife of the British isles since the last ice age. In 10 episodes.
A three part series about women working in the British film industry during the 1950s.
Architect George Clarke meets people taking on challenging huge builds for powerful emotional reasons. He follows them as they uproot their lives, stretch their finances and test their relationships, all in order to build wonderful homes of their dreams.
Following the men and women who work around the clock on Britain's longest and most iconic road, ensuring the traffic keeps moving and the public is kept safe.
Property and design enthusiast Tinie Tempah follows homeowners as they unleash their inner architect and build beautiful, often radical and 'out there' home extensions.
"It's queer, it's kinky" - the average man on the street might find lesbianism strange, but for the women interviewed in this surprisingly nuanced TV documentary, it's just an ordinary part of their lives. The women - butch, femme and everything in between - articulately discuss their lives, experiences and struggles with everyday discrimination, busting the myths that homosexuality is a disease and that gay women are doomed to loneliness. Among the interviewees are Esme Langley (speaking outside in woolly hat and coat), founder of the Minorities Research Group, Charlotte Wolff, a psychotherapist and sexologist whose 1971 book Love Between Women offered some of the first serious research into lesbianism, and Doreen Cordell, a social worker with the Albany Trust, a charity providing counselling and support to the LGBT community.
The show that puts renovation wrongs right, as homeowners who've had bad experiences with builders salvage their half-built homes.
Drawing on newly available evidence, this epic series explores the Windsor dynasty's gripping family saga, providing fresh insights into how our royal family have survived four generations of crisis.
Paul’s fascination with trains stems from his childhood. His father was a driver on the London Underground and when, as a young boy, Paul witnessed his dad driving a train across Putney Bridge, it sparked a lifelong fascination of railways. Now, he is following in his father’s footsteps by joining the drivers upfront and in control of some of the world’s most amazing trains and experiencing the best views as he travels through breathtaking landscapes in the UK and Europe. From steep gradients and tight curves to pinpoint platform stops, Paul will learn what it takes to keep these mighty machines on track. Visiting Germany, France, Switzerland, Wales, Northern England and Isle of Wight, he’ll meet the people who keep the railways running - from engineers and conductors to passengers with fascinating stories of their own.
Stretching from the Stone Age to the year 2000, Simon Schama's Complete History of Britain does not pretend to be a definitive chronicle of the turbulent events which buffeted and shaped the British Isles. What Schama does do, however, is tell the story in vivid and gripping narrative terms, free of the fustiness of traditional academe, personalising key historical events by examining the major characters at the centre of them. Not all historians would approve of the history depicted here as shaped principally by the actions of great men and women rather than by more abstract developments, but Schama's way of telling it is a good deal more enthralling as a result. Schama successfully gives lie to the idea that the history of Britain has been moderate and temperate, passing down the generations as stately as a galleon, taking on board sensible ideas but steering clear of sillier, revolutionary ones. Nonsense. Schama retells British history the way it was--as bloody, convulsive, precarious, hot-blooded and several times within an inch of haring off onto an entirely different course. Schama seems almost to delight in the goriness of history. Themes returned to repeatedly include the wars between the Scots and the Irish and the Catholic/Protestant conflicts--only the Irish question remains unresolved by the new millennium. As Britain becomes a constitutional monarchy, Schama talks less of Kings and Queens but of poets and idea-makers like Orwell. Still, with his pungent, direct manner and against an evocative visual and aural backdrop, Schama makes history seem as though it happened yesterday, the bloodstains not yet dry.
Motoring programme featuring reviews of and reports about cars of all types.
Explores WWII from Germany's invasion of Poland through the atomic age, examining pivotal battles, wartime leaders like Churchill and Roosevelt, and the human cost of total war.
This compelling series investigates the motives and m.o. of female murderers. While males are often driven by anger, impulse and destruction, women usually have more complex, long-term reasons to kill.
We spend it, we borrow it, and save it. Now let's talk about money and its many minefields, from credit cards to casino, scammers to student loans.
Actor Zac Efron journeys around the world with wellness expert Darin Olien in a travel show that explores healthy, sustainable ways to live.
An in-depth look at the history and pop cultural significance of horror films.
Explore the surprising things we know (and don’t know) about why people are the way they are through expert interviews, rare footage from historical experiments, and brand-new, ground-breaking demonstrations of human nature at work.
An insider's look at the engineering and scientific miracles behind the things that form the modern world.
Don Wildman unearths relics from the world's greatest institutions to reveal secrets from the past. He examines each artifact to illuminate history's most incredible triumphs, sensational crimes and bizarre encounters.
The F Word is a British food magazine and cookery programme featuring chef Gordon Ramsay. The programme covers a wide range of topics, from recipes to food preparation and celebrity food fads. The programme is made by Optomen Television and aired weekly on Channel 4. The theme tune for the series is "The F-Word" from the Babybird album Bugged.
Mark Gatiss examines the history of the horror film, from classic Hollywood monsters to Hammer's glory days and beyond.
A British genealogy documentary series in which celebrities trace their ancestry, discovering secrets and surprises from their past.
Award-winning actor and nervous explorer Eugene Levy steps out of his comfort zone for a whirlwind tour of the world's most beautiful and intriguing destinations.
The series heads to the very frontiers of space and science to produce the definitive television history of science fiction, told through its impact on cinema, television and literature, with the help of filmmakers, writers, actors, and graphic artists. Each episode will explore one of the enduring themes of science fiction: time travel; the exploration of space; robots and artificial intelligence; and aliens.
Infographics and archival footage deliver bite-size history lessons on scientific breakthroughs, social movements and world-changing discoveries.
Come one, come all to The Circus. This real-time documentary series pulls back the curtain on the current political stories, revealing the intense, inspiring and infuriating stories behind the headlines. Key characters and events are presented in real time, as they are happening.
Revisit the epic heroes, villains and moments from across the MCU in preparation for the stories still to come. Each dynamic segment feeds directly into the upcoming series — setting the stage for future events. This series weaves together the many threads that constitute the unparalleled Marvel Cinematic Universe.
This immersive series follows the world's most magnificent creatures, capturing never-before-seen moments from the heartwarming to the outrageous.
Learn how popular Disney attractions and destinations came to be, how they have changed over time, and how fans continue to obsess over them.
James May is not a chef. But that’s the whole point: you don’t need to be a brilliant cook to make delicious food. Transporting us to the Far East, the Med, and the local pub – all from the comfort of a home economist’s kitchen – he’ll knock up delicious recipes that you can actually make yourself, with ingredients you can actually buy. And all without the usual television cooking format trickery.