Clangers reporting

Communications England CoveragePress and Social Media Reporting

Communications|

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Clangers Special

Press CoverageCommunications|

Social Media

•  Across the first week of TX, Clangers had an audience nearly 1 million among all individuals 4+ which is 175% up on the slot average.

•  Sneak Peek end of May – reached potential of 6 million twitter accounts.

•  There were over 4000 tweets in the 24 hours the show aired

•  A snapshot of just 1500 tweets showed there were 15 million impressions on twitter (June 15th -18th)

Press

•  190 press articles including full front cover of TV and Satellite Week and inserts on the front cover of every listing magazines along with national features and regional coverage.

•  Over 100 people attended a red carpet premiere event.

•  Interviews and whistling masterclasses in how to speak ‘Clangerese’ reached a combined national and local radio audience of 16 and a quarter million people on the day of TX.

•  Reached a TV Audience (not including CBeebies) of 2 million.

Headlines

Radio CoverageCommunications|

Social Media CoverageCommunications|

15 million impressions in four days [from tx June 15 – June 18] – and that was just a snapshot from some 1500 tweets

4,000 mentions on Twitter in 24 hours from the day of TX - making Clangers one of the most talked about BBC subjects on social media

1) Top Gear – 4,865 mentions2) Licence Fee –4,495 mentions3) Clangers – 4,137 mentions4) Jonathan Dimbleby – 263 mentions5) Save BBC Three –177 mentions


Key spikes of activity in the month leading up to and including TX can be seen around comms activity:

May 26th – a sneak peek of the new series was seeded out to press and on twitter

May 30-June 1/2nd – the red carpet premiere event with live tweeting, the press pack was issued and some national press features ran.

June 12th – Michael Palin on Breakfast, tweeting from @bbcnorthpr and Breakfast, helped to really kick off the social media chatter with Clangers Trending after his appearance


Working with @helloclangers and @cbeebieshq, the comms team using @bbcnorth started the conversations going in the week leading up to TX with a tweet giving people a sneak peek clip of the new series. People engaged –

It had 36,000 impressions, it was retweeted 76 times

Following the sneak peek and the premiere launch the conversations really hotted up on social media with nearly 6 million impressions from May 25 – June 1st

Impressions analysis


The conversations on the day of TX kicked off early in the morning with general tweets about Clangers coming to CBeebies that day with a quarter of a million accounts reached with 50 tweets from 7.40am-8.10am. Series producer, Dan Maddicott, then went on Radio 4’s Today programme at 8.50am. There were half a million impressions on twitter in 6 minutes from a snap shot of 50 tweets just after Dan appeared on Radio 4

The cha'er con+nued throughout the day as Dan did more interviews on various broadcast outlets with spikes during his local radio interviews -‐ 300,000 accounts reached in 40 minutes



This continued the next morning when Dan went on Chris Evans Radio 2 Breakfast Show

There were over 700,000 accounts reached in 16 minutes from a snapshot of 50 tweets

Even four days later there was continued conversations and much love being expressed for #Clangers – including a review on Channel 5’s the Wright Stuff


Social Media CoverageCommunications| Engagement analysis

Linking in with other BBC twi'er accounts really encouraged engagement – there were 787 engagements from a retweet of Michael Palin appearing on Radio 2

A snap shot of the week shows there were propor+onate retweets and replies to original tweets.


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Press CoverageCommunications| Clangers

BIG ISSUE NORTH 15 - 21 JUNE10

The North West has a proud history of animation. From Cosgrove Hall’s prolific output in the 1970s, with shows such as Chorlton and the Wheelies, Dangermouse and Count Duckula, to more recent achievements such as Bob the Builder, not many other places can boast such a constant stream of quality children’s programming. This week Clangers, made entirely in Altrincham, will return to our screens for its third series.

Featuring the loveable, pink, mouse-like creatures who communicate in whistles and eat green soup from their soup wells, the series will be broadcast on CBeebies. The Clangers still live on a blue planet with craters topped with metal dustbin lids, which flip open with a

Forty-three years since we last visited the unnamed blue planet Clangers returns to our screens this week. Antonia Charlesworth talks to the Manchester animators who have resurrected them and finds they are the latest stitch in a rich tapestry of animation in the region

PLANET ALTRINCHAM

clang to reveal steps down to their home. The new series also sees the return of other favourite characters including the Soup Dragon, Baby Soup Dragon, the Iron Chicken, Sky Moos and Froglets.

“Adding Clangers to the list [of shows made here] shows everyone that the north really is leading the way in world-class animation,” says Chris Tichborne, co-director of the new series at animation studio Factory.

“We have had many ups and downs in the animation industry but it has always remained

fairly consistent in the north of England. We have weathered recession and all the slings and arrows of funding but it still remains to be a thriving business.”

Tichborne calls Clangers “the granddaddy of children’s telly” and says being involved is a dream come true.

Michael Palin takes over narration from the wonderfully atmospheric Oliver Postgate, who co-created the series with Peter Firmin. The new series has all the magical, gentle, melodic elements of the original and the same stop-motion animation – but with modern-day technology and a larger production team.

Tichborne and co-director Mole

Hill – both

BIN1085_10,11,12 (clangers).indd 10 12/06/2015 10:12

11 15 - 21 JUNE BIG ISSUE NORTH

ways of upgrading the internal armatures.”

Given this affection for the original Clangers, Mackinnon, like everyone involved, says he was nervous about the prospect of recreating them. But the announcement that the show was being remade was met with some scepticism. CGI reboots of The Wombles, Magic Roundabout and others have received much criticism in recent years. Last month Thunderbirds Are Go, a digital reincarnation of the 1960s Thunderbirds series, aired and was blasted by fans.

“We now have the technology to create

PLANET ALTRINCHAM

“The original designs have such charm there was no conscious effort to improve them.”

from a stop-motion background – share a passion for the hand-crafted aesthetic. For Clangers this meant using a lot of pink wool – three kilometres to be exact. Getting to grips with it all was award-winning puppet-making company Mackinnon and Saunders (Frankenweenie, Fantastic Mr Fox), also based in Altrincham. Managing director Ian Mackinnon says the new family are hand knitted in the same stocking stitch, with a wool-cotton mix, on 3.75mm needles – which Firmin’s wife Joan used for the original Clangers in 1969.

“Clangers was a big part of my childhood,” he says. “It sparked my interest in puppets and animation too. It was a magical day when Peter Firmin and Daniel Postgate came to the M&S workshops. Peter arrived cradling two original Clangers puppets in his arms. We felt like we were being visited by puppet royalty.

“The original designs have such charm that there was no conscious effort to try and improve the Clangers. It’s important that we give the animators the best tools for the job though, so we looked at subtle


BIG ISSUE NORTH 15 - 21 JUNE12

infinite different types of computer-generated animation, which is very exciting,” says Tichborne. “But we have to be careful how we use it. Sometimes you can have too many bells and whistles to play with and things can start to look a bit generic.”

Jackie Edwards, CBeebies executive producer for Clangers, says it was compulsory that the new series remained faithful to the original.

“We always think very carefully about bringing back old shows, but the Clangers proposal was quite irresistible. The original series has an enduring magic – a proper heart and soul that enriched a generation.”

Despite a huge amount of original material on the pre-school channel, in February Teletubbies creator Anne Wood hit out at the station when it announced it would be bringing back her 1990s hit too. “I’m a bit sad,” she told the Radio Times. “It comes down to the times we’re in: people feel safer remaking hits of the past rather than investing in something new.”

But Edwards says making Clangers felt anything but safe, given the heritage associated with it.

“We all felt a weight of responsibility,” she tells Big Issue North. “We all wanted it to be right. The pitch for the new series was not a re-boot or a re-imagining, just a continuation. The Clangers would still be knitted, Soup Dragon and Iron Chicken are present and correct, all is as it should be on the little blue planet.”

That will please the grown-ups, but will it appeal to a new generation of viewers used to today’s action-packed, loud and brightly coloured animation?

Tichbourne says: “We have to remember that when Clangers was first televised it was at a totally different time and generation. Children today are exposed to so much more material

Getting the needle: Amanda Thomas of Mackinnon and Saunders makes a mouse-like alien

The flag that the spaceman puts up in the original series has details of stars in one corner and a hammer and sickle in the other as Firmin and Postgate did not know who would get to the moon first – the Russians or the Americans.

In the new episode The Crystal Trees, the trees are made from ice and are filmed as they are melting. This is played backwards so they appear to be growing.

Each character’s new tabard has a personalised symbol. Small has an “S” formed from question marks, as he is so inquisitive. Tiny has two musical notes to represent her love of music. Mother has an “M” with a flower on that is also shaped like a heart. Major has “C” for Clangers and it’s a cog to represent invention. Granny has spun wool shaped like a “G”.

Around 11 seconds of animation were produced every day for the new series, which equates to a full episode of animation every 9.2 days.

The whistling sound the Clangers make is arguably a universal language. Oliver Postgate was once told by a German viewer that the Clangers spoke perfect German.

than they were back then and have an expectation and logic that is based on present standards. We have retained as much of the look and feel of the original show and added a few extra things to focus on the characters and the sense of being part of a family or a community.”

Dan Postgate, son of Oliver Postgate, is the new show’s executive producer, as well as a scriptwriter and the voice of the Iron Chicken, Soup Dragon and Baby Soup Dragon. When filming of the original stopped when he was a child, he was allowed to play with the Clangers.

Postgate senior was a radical – heavily influenced by his grandfather George Lansbury, a Christian socialist and one of the founders of the Labour Party. Some viewers detected in the show themes of fear of nuclear war and mistrust of authority, and there was a legend that the Clangers language is full of expletives. Firmin denies the show was subversive or that the Clangers were potty-mouthed puppets. But Postgate insists his father was at least expressing a humane view of the universe.

“In the second series of the original he touched upon issues such as wasteful overproduction of disposable goods to highlight humankind’s folly,” says Postgate. “Oliver was of the view that people should be kind to each other and treat each other with respect and dignity regardless of their class, race or gender.

“Clangers reflects a sort of simple sanity, a credo, in which kindness and respect is maintained at all times. It has certainly been my aim to continue this ethos in the new series.” n

Clangers begins on CBeebies on 15 June

See the Features section of bigissuenorth.com for Q&A interviews with Michael Palin, Peter

Firmin and Dan Postgate – and for instructions on how to knit yourself a Clanger

WHISTLE-STOP TOUR


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LATEST NEWSFIRST LOOK: INSIDE ALTRINCHAM’S NEW £17M COMMUNITY HOSPITAL April 16, 2015

MADE IN ALTRINCHAM: BEHIND THE SCENES AS THEICONIC CLANGERS RETURNS TO THE BBCJUNE 15, 2015 | BY DAVID PRIOR

☰

465SHARES

T he Clangers returns to the BBC today after an absence of over 40 years – and we’ve been given anexclusive tour around the Altrincham studio that has brought it back to life.

Animation company Factory is based in an inauspicious building on the Altrincham Business Park, but it’shere where one of the most iconic children’s TV shows ever made is being lovingly and painstakinglyrevived for the kids of 2015. The first new episode airs on CBeebies at 5.30pm tonight.

Step beyond a fairly innocuous looking office door and you enter Planet Clangers, a series of beautifullyrealised sets amid a stack of start-of-the-art technology and a team of expert animators, many of whomopted for a career in animation having grown up watching the very programme they are now workingon.

Below: An animator works on one of the Clangers sets at Factory in Altrincham

One of them, Jo Chalkley, jumped at the chance to work on the new series. “It was one of my favouriteprogrammes back in the 70s, so when the opportunity came up I just couldn’t refuse it,” she said.

“People may be worried that we’ve spoilt it or modernised it too much, but we haven’t, we’ve kept it veryclose to the original. It’s still got the same heart and it’s very sympathetically done.”

Chalkley said the new series was full of “nice little stories that are a little bit odd and quirky… I always crywhen they come on – I can’t believe it looks so lovely”.

� �

The Maidstone and Medway News Messenger Newspapers Altrincham today


International Business Times The Herald

Damien Love SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2015 CUSTOM BYLINE TEXT:

Damien Love The Clangers

Monday-Friday, 5.30pm, CBeebies

But wait. Listen. What's this?

"...If, in our imaginations, we turn away from the Earth and think about other planets, other, less-fortunate stars, we realise that life there might be very different. Very bleak and dull. The solitary fisher, setting off to catch what she can in the vast empty spaces of the universe, may feel very much alone..."

The lines come not from some cosmic-poetic Ray Bradbury story, but from a 1970 episode of The Clangers, and they are best appreciated when you hear them spoken by the man who wrote them, Oliver Postgate, who had the kindliest, wisest, slyest and closest voice on television, and who made the best ever television for children, because he did it knowing we are all children.

Many of us carry Clangers with us the way we do DNA, so it can be startling to realise how few episodes Postgate and his partner in genius, Peter Firmin, actually made about the pink knitted creatures with mouse ears and anteater snouts who shared that tiny, lumpy grey planet with the Soup Dragon. It takes two men in a shed many hours to do stop-motion animation, and only 26 woolly 10-minute epics were produced between 1969 and 1972.

Since then, in the vast empty spaces of the universe, there has been only silence. Postgate died in 2008, may hosts of swanee whistles sing him to his rest.

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