16 Dec 2014
Blow for Chester Zoo as 'Our Zoo' axed by the BBC
BY Tom Anstey
Our Zoo, the popular TV drama about the history of Chester Zoo, has been cancelled “to create room for new shows” according to the BBC.
The news will come as a blow for Chester Zoo, which according to the zoo’s managing director Jamie Christon, was worth around £30m (US$48.1m, €38m) in free PR for the visitor attraction in the north of England.
“£30m is PR equivalent,” said Christon speaking to AM2 in October. “If we were out there buying space to promote the zoo, it would have cost us £30m to get the same sort of media exposure with the amount of publications and media outlets the zoo has appeared in."
The popular drama told the tale of Chester Zoo founder George Mottershead and how he decided to start the establishment along with the trials and tribulations he came up against while doing so. The show – which ran for six episodes airing every Wednesday on BBC One in a prime time spot between September and October – garnered an average rating of 5.1 million viewers an episode.
Chester Zoo is also currently halfway through construction on its £30m Islands project, set to be completed in December this year and opened to the public in May 2015.
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