Neil Nightingale is a senior producer at the BBC's Natural History Unit, the largest wildlife film-making production unit in the world,[1] and was its Head from February 2003[2] until January 2009.[3] In November 2009 his successor, Andrew Jackson, appointed him to the new position of creative director of BBC Earth, alongside his programme production rôle.[4]
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Nightingale attended the University of Oxford and graduated with a first class degree in zoology. After working as a freelance science journalist for New Scientist, he joined the BBC in 1983 as a researcher and assistant producer in a variety of television genres, including current affairs, regional programmes, science and education.[5]
His first natural history production credits were for a number of programmes in the Wildlife on One series. He later moved on to the challenges of engaging audiences with series on fossils and plants, both collaborations with veteran broadcaster David Attenborough.
In 1995, Nightingale took on the role of Series Editor for The Natural World, BBC Two's long-running flagship natural history series. Under his editorship, The Natural World's programmes won awards at every major international wildlife film festival as well as the Royal Television Society award for Best Documentary Strand.[6]
He went on to produce several series in the Continents strand for BBC Two, including Wild Africa and Wild Down Under, before replacing Keith Scholey as Head of the Unit in 2003.
Under his leadership, the Unit developed its reputation for innovative and ambitious natural history broadcasting. He oversaw well-received television series including Planet Earth (2006), Springwatch (2005) and Wild China (2008) as well as the Unit's largest-ever radio production, World on the Move (2008) which followed migrating animals.[7] He also moved the Unit into the field of feature films with Deep Blue (2003) and Earth (2007), both spin-offs from successful television series.
In January 2009 the BBC announced that Nightingale was to stand down after six years as Head of the Unit to return to programme making. He was succeeded in the rôle by Andrew Jackson.[8] He is currently producing Great Barrier Reef, a three-part series for BBC Two due to air in 2012.[9]
Nightingale is a co-founder and the current vice chairman of the BBC Wildlife Fund, a conservation charity established in 2007. Its first appeal raised £1.7 million for endangered species conservation, and it has funded almost 50 projects in the UK and around the world.[10] Nightingale is also a trustee of Wildscreen, a charity which organises the biennial wildlife film festival of the same name in Bristol. Its ARKive project aims to create an online database of all the world's species.
As Head of the Natural History Unit, Nightingale faced down criticism over the issues of viewer deception and value for money for licence fee payers. In 2007, because of a lower than expected licence fee settlement, the BBC announced major cutbacks across its factual production departments, including budget and staff cuts at the Natural History Unit.[11] This move was criticized by veteran broadcaster David Attenborough, a long-time collaborator with the NHU.[12]
The following year, Nightingale defended the Unit against accusations of profligacy with regard to the production costs of the Big Cat Live series. According to newspaper reports, a production team of 94 people was based in a luxury hotel in Kenya during three weeks of filming.[13] The budget for Big Cat Live has not been made public.
Film techniques used by the Natural History Unit came under close scrutiny in 2008 following a number of scandals in which other programme-making departments in the BBC were revealed to have deceived viewers. Examples of the use of tame animals ( a red fox in The Nature of Britain) and studio sets (deep sea life in The Blue Planet) to simulate footage from the wild were brought to light.[14] Nightingale rebutted accusations of misleading viewers, arguing that it is almost impossible to film certain sequences in the wild and that the Unit is open about its methods.[15]