The BBC has announced a new website featuring thousands of clips from its television archives.
More than 1,700 newly published videos are being made available on bbc.co.uk/archive. The BBC said many of them “help paint a rich social history of Britain in the television era.”
The website will be curated by the same team that currently mines the vaults for the BBC Archive social media accounts.
As well as famous clips like Blue Peter presenter John Noakes’ 1977 ascent of Nelson’s column, the website will feature historically significant content, such as footage surrounding the outbreak of World War Two and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Peter Rippon, BBC Archive executive editor, said: “The site is the beginning of a journey into the BBC’s most cherished asset. Social history, and what it reveals about who we are, is proving especially popular, so we’ve created collections of hundreds of items that give a glimpse of what the archive contains. We are planning to open up the archive much more as the BBC prepares to mark its Centenary in 2022. This is an important step on that journey.”
