The BBC was involved right from the outset and I’ve found a recording from that first Festival year of A recital of Scottish Lowland Songs (Burns etc) given by the soprano Marie Thomson and tenor John Tainsh with Ian Whyte on the piano. The BBC Scottish Orchestra (sic) also makes an appearance with Ian Whyte as conductor and Cyril Smith on the pianoforte playing the first performance of the conductor’s own concerto. Clearly it was a good year for Ian Whyte.

• What have been some of the standout BBC broadcast moments since the International Festival began in 1947?

This is a question I have asked various people including former Artistic Directors of the Festival and we are lucky to have had some truly historic moments from over the past 70 years captured forever thanks to Radio 3 and our predecessor The Third Programme. Today I discovered a recording of the famous tenor Fritz Wunderlich singing Schumann’s Dichterliebe at the 1966 Festival, literally days before he tragically died in an accident. I was also particularly excited to find a number of great composers had attended the Festival to perform their own works. There are recordings of Francis Poulenc and Pierre Bernac (who premiered so many of his songs at the Festival) performing the song cycle Le Travail du Peintre and the great Hungarian composer Ernő Dohnányi performing a solo piano recital of his own works. Benjamin Britten of course made several appearances as have other great luminaries including Pierre Boulez. Some of the greatest artists of the last 70 years have been captured on tape at the International Festival including singers Maria Callas, Kathleen Ferrier, Jessye Norman; instrumentalists including cellist Pierre Fournier, violinist Moskowsky (also famous as a composer of many showpieces), violinist Isaac Stern, the Amadeus Quartet, the Orpheus Choir and…the list goes on.

• Can you talk us through an average day for the Radio 3 team during the International Festival?

It’s quite a conveyor-belt of production as we are a fairly small team with usually two producers alternating concerts every day for three weeks. The team arrive at the Queen’s Hall at about 8am to re-rig and check the equipment and the communications to London. The presenter, (either Donald Macleod or Jamie MacDougall) arrives at around 9am to meet the producer, check over the script, make any last minute changes that have occurred recently. The trickiest thing here is when the repertoire changes at very short notice, which creates a flurry of activity including changes to the online and digital radio information and not least some speedy re-scripting to introduce the new piece. The producer meets and talks to the artist to finalise any last details that affect the broadcast including when they might come off stage between pieces, any changes or concerns and often a short interview for inclusion in the broadcast.

Before the concert begins we’ve normally tweeted, Facebooked and shared stories and pictures about the concert. The producer keeps in close touch with Radio 3 via telephone and ISDNs to make sure we dovetail into the morning's programming. This often includes a short ‘two-way’ conversation between our presenter and the presenter on-air before the concert begins. At 11am the presenter and concert go live on air whilst we monitor the performance and audio. We make notes for future reference and are ready to take action in case something happens like a string breaking or in case anything happens inside the hall that disrupts the concert. In the interval we stay on air with script, conversation or music and we finally hand back to Radio 3 as the applause comes to an end.

• What can listeners look forward to in this year’s Radio 3 coverage of the International Festival?

Radio 3 continues in its role as partner with the International Festival, broadcasting live, fifteen morning concerts from the Queen’s Hall and recording six Usher Hall concerts for later broadcast. There will also be live editions of programmes such as Breakfast, Record Review and In Tune from the BBC at the Edinburgh Festivals hub and two documentaries looking at the history and founding of the festival – one which will use archive recording and new interviews to trace an oral history of the early years of the festival, and the second, which will tell the story of how after 1945 arts festivals such as Edinburgh were created across Europe to re-establish a spirit of international co-operation. We’ll also be delving into our archive, looking back at some of the great moments captured on the radio over the past 70 years – these moments will include twelve concerts featuring some of the finest artists to appear at the International Festival.

In a year in which both the Festival and Radio 3 are 70 years young it’s set to be a brilliant three weeks of music making and recording - stay tuned!

Lindsay Pell is Senior Producer for Music at BBC Scotland.

• Listen to BBC Radio 3 and keep up to date with the station on twitter and facebook.
• Find out more about the Edinburgh International Festival 2017.
• Watch Donald McLeod at work at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2015. 

And so, goodbye Edinburgh Festivals. We said we'd do you bigger and better than ever before - and we did. Thanks to our teams across the city and down at the BBC site at Potterrow. Some just passing through for a night or two with one production, some in it for the full 24 days, but everyone working long hours, through all weather (including, and I'm not joking, an actual 'hurricane'), to bring Edinburgh to audiences at home and to make Potterrow (pictured) a fabulous production base and focal point for festival visitors with events and outreach programmes. Sure, stacked portacabins don't immediately scream 'fun' for some people, but we paint them bright colours and smile a lot. And there are tents, a ping-pong, a big screen, bands, family events, food stalls and a bar too. 

One of the best things about Potterrow is the way it brings the whole BBC together. Here you find teams from Television, Radio, News, Learning, Nations and Regions, World Service and Online all working together with that warm, gooey collaborative spirit that defines the BBC at its absolute best. I even saw three different presenters come together in the same five-metre radius - the broadcasting equivalent of crossing the beams - and the world didn't end.

How do we know this was our best Edinburgh yet? Well, it was terrific having The One Show, Newsnight, Radio 1Xtra and World Service's Newsday join the party for the first time, bringing the best of Edinburgh to new and larger audiences. We also had a new flagship BBC Two show - Edinburgh Nights with Sue Perkins and Edinburgh Extra with Kirsty Wark on BBC Four. And we not only fulfilled, but surpassed our pledge to deliver a performance a day through BBC Arts Online. But the success also lay in the continuing support of friends like Fred MacAulay, Just a Minute, Radio 1, and the Asian Network. I sat in on as many broadcasts as I could and particularly enjoyed seeing shows like Front Row, Radio 2 Arts Show, Newsnight, In Tune, the Culture Studio, Simon Mayo Drivetime, Edinburgh Nights, recorded before large and enthusiastic audiences - and you could feel that energy translating on air. 

It's not just Potterrow, of course. Radio 3 broadcast 19 concerts from the Edinburgh International Festival and teams from Scotland and Comedy were out and about capturing the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, Seann Walsh's Late Night Comedy Spectacular, and the hottest shows across the city. Between us all, we ensured that the best of Edinburgh - the world's largest and finest arts and comedy festival - reached millions upon millions of people. It's something only we can do. 

As for the art... The International Festival pulled a blinder with Rona Munro's extraordinary James plays. Seeing Sofie Grabol's (of The Killing and 'that' jumper fame) electrifying performance as Queen Margaret in James III - in this city at this time - felt like seeing history in the making. Other highlights included Akram Khan's wonderful Gnosis, where he heroically and masterfully improvised for twenty minutes because his female principle was off sick. The Book Festival goes from strength to strength and has emerged as one of the world's most important literary gatherings. My favourite Fringe plays were at Summerhall: Britannia Waves the Rules, The Man Who Almost Killed Himself and Standby for Tape Back-Up. There was weird and wonderful music with the Song of the Goat's Return to the Voice and Wyckham Porteous' Songs of Orwell Farm. And BBC Arts Online partnered with HiBROW on a brilliant series of productions including Alison Jackson's La Trashiata - a model for how we can be curators within the festivals as well as reporters. 

As I write, the astro-turf is being rolled up at Potterrow, the deckchairs stacked, the tents let down and the portacabins taken to wherever portacabins go when not in use. Edinburgh is Christmas for anyone who loves art and comedy, and we're already talking to our partners and developing new ideas on how to work even closer and more effectively with the festivals next year. 

Jonty Claypole is Director, BBC Arts

 

• Catch up with the best of the festivals at BBC Arts 

 

We’ve had a great year on BBC Three. Whether we’ve been giving politicians GCSE maths text books, feeding people slabs of horsemeat, seeing what new drivers really get up to, bringing women’s football to the nation or whiling time away at the Wishy Washy Laundrette, we’ve continued to innovate and originate in every genre. As a result we’re still the most watched non-terrestrial channel in the hours we transmit.  We reached an average of 12.6 million people a week and over 4 million of these were 16-34 year olds.

In comedy, new sitcoms on the home front and the front line proved a big hit with our audiences, Bad Education, Cuckoo, Some Girls, Badults and Bluestone 42 will all be returning. We’ve also commissioned Siblings, a brand new scripted comedy series from the producers of The Inbetweeners.

In entertainment Nick Grimshaw and his quiff are sweating more of the small stuff with a second series of his panel show Sweat The Small Stuff, and there will be plenty of chat thanks to Staying In With Greg and Russell, and Jack Whitehall’s Backchat, where Jack’s biggest headache won’t be the guests, but having to cope with his disparaging Dad, Michael.

In factual we’ve continued to explore and raise awareness of issues facing young people across the UK and abroad, reflecting their life experiences.  We highlighted the problems with being a woman in India and being gay in the US.  It’s A Mad World was an agenda-setting season of thought-proving and often uplifting programmes dedicated to debunking the myths and taboos around mental health issues and it received a great response from audiences, critics and Mental Health charities alike, really making a difference in young people’s lives. Next year we will continue to tackle emotive issues with our Justice Season, reflecting on crime and punishment in the UK and the US and asking whether young adults are treated fairly.

And who could forget the impact that The Call Centre made? We saw that happy people do indeed sell, and thanks to Nev we got involved with the lives and loves of the very entertaining employees of a Welsh call centre.  Series two will air next year but in the meantime there’s a Christmas special to look forward to. Bring on the Santa suit.

We also commissioned successful, fast turnaround documentaries on the Cleveland kidnappings, the horsemeat scandal and the Oscar Pistorius arrest. New series Don’t Just Stand There I’m Having Your Baby, Barely Legal Drivers and Unsafe Sex in the City saw young people’s birthing skills, driving ability and sexual health being tested and all will be returning. We continued to see how our audience can party abroad, plan a wedding and eat 26 Krispy Kreme doughnuts in one sitting. And later this year the parents will be getting suspicious and cold when the ski season hits in Snow Sex and Suspicious Parents.

On the awards front there were BAFTA and Broadcast Awards for the satirical hit The Revolution Will Be Televised (and I can promise you the boys will continue to pack a punch with series two hits on high-profile people including leading politicians), a second BAFTA and a Freesat Award for Our War, a Comedy Award for Jack Whitehall and a Broadcast Award for the single drama My Murder. Our zombie thriller In The Flesh will be returning and the good news is we’re looking for more dramas, two a year from next year.

Innovation is nothing without new talent and we’re still providing a pipeline for rising stars in all genres. Our Comedy Feeds, Fresh Documentaries and Online Drama Pilots will continue to act as a springboard for talent both on and off the screen. We have already commissioned three full series as a result of our Comedy Feeds Pilots and Fresh has nurtured an expanding array of great documentary makers. And as always we’re working with online and iPlayer, making our content as quickly and widely available as possible.

So, keep watching and we’ll keep making stand-out programmes that get you talking.  Or in the words of Nev, “we promise to keep putting even more glide in our stride.”

Zai Bennett is Controller, BBC Three

New BBC Three programmes announced as part of Zai Bennett's Edinburgh International TV Festival 'Meet the Controller' session can be found on the Media Centre website. 

Zai also marked BBC Three's 10th birthday with a special post here on the About the BBC Blog. 

I’m at the Edinburgh TV Festival today and have just finished my ‘Meet the Controller’ session with Cathy Newman from Channel 4 News. It’s been a chance to look back at what has been a fantastic year for BBC Two as well as look ahead to another exciting year to come. (You can read a summary of some of the points discussed here.) 

 

It has been a year of real highs for the network, winning Broadcast Channel of the Year and MGEITF (Media Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival) Channel of the Year. BBC TWO also won more BAFTAs than any other channel this year including awards for: 7/7, Murder, Twenty Twelve and Great British Bake Off plus eight RTS Programme Awards. Drama has continued its resurgence, from the acclaimed series Line of Duty, which was the biggest new drama series on the channel since 2005 (peak of 4.2m) to The Fall (4.7m watched the final episode).

 

In factual, one of my guiding principles has been to make the intelligent popular, and the popular intelligent. I believe the success of programmes like Great British Bake Off, Great British Sewing Bee, The Last Days of Anne Boleyn and The Secret Life of The Cat is down to the fact that they are content rich and informative, but also compelling and they ‘feel’ distinctively BBC Two.

‘Talent’ has continued to be central and I’ve been delighted to see the success of new expert presenters such as Joann Fletcher and Michael Scott as well as the on-going popularity of established faces such as Mary Beard, Lucy Worsley, Mary and Paul, Dara O Briain and Brian Cox.

Of course, the DQF (Delivering Quality First) cuts have been challenging, but BBC Two is still ahead of its main competitors in peak, and audience appreciation is as high as ever.

On top of all this, I’ve relished the challenge of taking on responsibility for BBC Four, following the departure of Richard Klein in May. I was Controller of BBC Four for four years, and the channel has always held a really special place in my heart.

My ambition is to find ways to increase collaboration between the channels whilst ensuring that BBC Four retains the unique and distinctive voice that I know its viewers love. Today I announced two examples of this new collaborative approach: a major season looking at the art and music of the 18th century and an exciting science moment taking us closer to the Earth’s atmosphere, as well as a number of other new commissions which demonstrate the confidence and range of both channels.

Over on the BBC Media Centre website, you can find out more about the announcements I made including a landmark factual drama about the countdown to the First World War; a major new season about the 18th century across both channels and new series fronted by Ian Hislop, Lucy Worsley, Kate Humble and Fern Britton. 

Janice Hadlow is Controller BBC Two and Interim Controller, BBC Four.

 

A summary of tweets posted during Janice's 'Meet the Controller' session can be found on Storify. 

For more information about the BBC's TV announcements follow @BBCPress on Twitter or find full details about Janice's announcements on the BBC Media Centre website.

The BBC Academy will be running free 'EdTalks' sessions throughout the day. More information about those industry sessions can be found on the Academy website.

Danny Cohen introduced the Edinburgh International TV Festival coverage on the About the BBC Blog earlier today.  

Over the course of the last fortnight over 100 hours of radio and 200 hours of TV and red button content has been produced from our temporary home at the Fringe with more than 10 BBC networks involved and over 20,000 fringe-goers visiting our venue. I'm very proud that we've had every nominee from the Comedy Awards on our stage at some point during the last fortnight including the winner Adam Riches.

This venue was something of a pilot for us as we look to join up our Fringe coverage as well as the BBC's overall Edinburgh Festivals programming.

As the person responsible for bringing all of the production teams together at this single venue it was great to see Radio 1's Fun and Filth Cabaret hosted by Scott Mills and Nick Grimshaw, with guest hosts Dappy from N-Dubz and The Hoff, crossing paths with the team from BBC Radio 4's Fringe favourite Just a Minute, chaired by the legendary performer Nicholas Parsons, who not only recorded radio shows at the BBC venue but also hosted his own daily chat show and appeared in a play at the Pleasance during the Festival.

Under the careful eye of Headmaster Arthur Smith, and new for 2011, the Comedy School at the Fringe included masterclasses with some of the most respected names in comedy including the team behind BBC Three's Mongrels, Miranda Hart and Ricky Gervais.

In addition, with a host of performance and comedy writing workshops and the BBC Three Funny in 15 seconds video booth, we hope to have found a few stars of the future.

For a taste of the last two weeks from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe our short film and website will, I hope, whet your appetite for Edinburgh 2012.

Sophie Taitt is Project Director, BBC at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2011

• The BBC Edinburgh Fringe 2011 website
• In Pictures: The best of the BBC at the Fringe
• Film: Planning a radio ob from the College of Production website

I've been the Controller of BBC One now for ten months and have begun to put new plans in place to make the channel as vibrant and creative as it can possibly be.

One of the big things for me is to try and make sure that BBC One offers something for everyone and does a good job of reflecting the nation back to itself. BBC One is the Nation's Favourite Channel, and I think it's important that all licence-fee payers find plenty on BBC One that informs, educates and entertains.

With this in mind, I hope that the programmes you see on this preview video are enticing - and encompass the quality, scale, thoughtfulness and entertainment values that I want BBC One to deliver.

The programmes previewed include brand new drama Call The Midwife starring Miranda Hart and Jessica Raine, the epic new natural history series Frozen Planet, and new comedy starring Sir David Jason, The Royal Bodyguard. It is thrilling to have Sir David returning to the BBC for his first comedy since Only Fools and Horses, and this video gives you the very first exclusive snippet of a show that is currently still in production.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to announce a raft of exciting new commissions for BBC One.

In Drama, we've just given the green-light to The Village - a bold new series from Peter Moffatt. It's the story of one man's journey through the 20th Century, beginning with his humble childhood on a downtrodden farm. The Village is one of those scripts you read and can't wait to see realised on-screen from the moment you turn the final page. It has the richness and emotional depth of the very finest television writing.

Also on its way for BBC One viewers is Fight For Life, a major new natural history series which will use the latest live technology and filming techniques to tell the story of young animals right across the world. This is a very ambitious new live event for BBC One that we hope will bring viewers closer to the daily experience of wild animals than they have ever been before.

In entertainment, we're delighted to be able to announce a new series starring one of Scotland's brightest young talents, Kevin Bridges. BBC One should simultaneously be the home of Britain's national treasures in comedy and also a place where new talent can flourish. We are therefore thrilled to be working with Kevin, who combines brilliant jokes with an acute vision of human nature.

Finally, I'd like to announce two new projects that introduce a new level of risk and experimentation to BBC One. BBC One should be known for boldness, quality and mainstream impact, but I'd also like it to be known for a commitment to risk and innovation that is unusual on a mainstream channel.

To this end, we've commissioned a six-part improvised drama series from Dominic Savage for BBC One - Love Life - that will test the boundaries of fiction on the Channel. We are also announcing a run of new transmittable comedy pilots in order to supercharge the comedy development process for BBC One. Our aim here is to use a run of transmittable pilots as a way of reaching out to joyous new things, in the way we managed with Being Human on BBC Three.

So, from the African savannah to a small English village, from major live events to one of Britain's hottest young comic talents, these commissions show the range and ambition we have for BBC One, and our aim to combine world-class quality with risk and innovation.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this and watch the video - and I hope you find plenty to enjoy on BBC One in the coming months and years.

Danny Cohen is Controller of BBC One

• The Media Guardian Edinburgh International TV Festival finishes tomorrow. Details on the official web site. Follow @edinburghtvfest on Twitter.
• The Guardian has a special page for news from the festival.
• There's also a special page on the BBC Press Office web site for announcements from the Festival.

I've just finished my 'Meet the Controller' session at the Edinburgh TV Festival where I was interviewed by Kate Silverton. It was a chance to reflect on what I think has been a really good year for BBC Two. We screened some of the highlights and you can see them in the video.

There's been an amazing resurgence in drama and comedy, with programmes like The Hour, The Shadow Line, Crimson Petal and The White, The Trip and Episodes. We've proved that quality can rate with programmes like Wonders of the Universe, Stargazing Live, Battle of Britain, and we've not been afraid to tackle sensitive subjects in factual programmes, for example Terry Pratchett Choosing To Die and the recent Life Of Muhammad series. We've also nurtured some really engaging and authoritative new presenters on the channel, like Mary Beard, Amanda Vickery, Brian Cox, Lorraine Pascale and Ben McIntyre. We've won five RTS awards and five Bafta awards this year across the range of genres and I'm pleased to say that BBC Two share is up in peak so far this year, which suggests that viewers like the direction that the channel is moving in too. Thank you for all your support.

If you look at what has worked over the last year you can see what the channel needs more of going forward, and this is what we were talking about in the session. I was pleased to be able to announce that The Hour will be returning - a programme that has had tremendous impact and has seen its audience appreciation figures rise over the series. We have agreed with writer Abi Morgan that the next series will be set ten months later and it will be interesting to see how the plot develops. You can read more about it on the BBC Press Office web site.

I'm also delighted that Mary Beard will be returning to the channel with a three-part series on Rome. Following her ratings-busting first appearance on the channel with a one-hour documentary on Pompeii, we have persuaded her to put academia aside for a few more months in order to make a series for us on what life was like for ordinary people in ancient Roman Society. Mary is a wonderfully engaging and charismatic communicator, with a wealth of knowledge on her subject - always compelling, always passionate, she's a joy to watch. There's more about the new series in the press release and if you'd like to know more about our forthcoming programmes, take a look at our summer and autumn press pack.

Janice Hadlow is Controller of BBC Two

• The Media Guardian Edinburgh International TV Festival starts today and goes on all weekend. Details on the official web site. Follow @edinburghtvfest on Twitter.
• The Guardian has a special page for news from the festival.
• There's also a special page on the BBC Press Office web site for announcements from the Festival.

Thank goodness my interview at the Media Guardian International TV Festival is over. It's always slightly terrifying and good to get some fresh air afterwards, but actually Penny Smith, who was interviewing me, was delightful. Hopefully the audience found it an informative and lively session.

Naturally there was quite a bit of interest in what the future holds for BBC Four post-DQF (Delivering Quality First). While there are no final decisions yet, there's one thing we do know: we've all got to take our share of cuts. Of course no one welcomes being cut back and it will bring changes. I'm not at liberty to talk about it what these changes will be yet as we don't know the outcome, but I promise I will do everything in my power to keep the essence and spirit of the channel - appealing to people who love to think, be entertained on every subject and who enjoy a channel that has an opinion and offers perspective.

In my session, I was keen to talk further about BBC Four's new role as the curator of content online as well as on television. It was recently announced that BBC Four will be the gateway through which audiences can explore the rich heritage of BBC TV programming. BBC Four's collections will be curated around seasons/themes, something I think we are very good at, and will take the viewer on a deeper journey through the subject via the BBC's extensive archive, with content from all genres and channels. Today I announced our first 'collection', which will be around the channel's Army Season in September. We've managed to find some amazing gems from the archive which chart the British Army from the 1950s to 90s, brought bang up-to-date with our programmes that form part of the season on BBC Four.

You can read more about our new 'collection' on the BBC Press Office web site, where we also announce a new arts series for BBC Four, Art Noveau, which explores the short but brilliant life of this movement at the end of the 19th century. I also announced two 90-minute film adaptations of Alan Furst's novels, The Spies of Warsaw - yes, I am still commissioning drama on the channel. The video is the one I showed in my 'Meet the Controller' session at the conference, which features some of our recent successes and offers a sneak preview of The Killing 2. (Talking of The Killing, I hope you are managing to catch our repeat showing of the first series which is stripped across the schedule at 10pm, continuing until 15 September.)

Richard Klein is Controller of BBC Four

• The Media Guardian Edinburgh International TV Festival starts today and goes on all weekend. Details on the official web site Follow @edinburghtvfest on Twitter.
• The Guardian has a special page for news from the festival.
• There's also a special page on the BBC Press Office web site for announcements from the Festival.

The Edinburgh Television Festival is a key event in the broadcast calendar; it's an opportunity for media companies to debate the industry's biggest issues and showcase their upcoming content. As Advisory Chair of this year's festival I've pulled together a programme that promises not only to celebrate television but also to examine its future - and to look at how and why, several years after many prophesised its demise, it's actually more popular than ever.

The BBC is of course participating in many of the key debates and the channel controllers for BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, and BBC4 all be discussing their plans with a live audience. As the weekend progresses they'll all be uploading blogs to this page, linking to exclusive clips from some of the high quality programmes which will be hitting your screens over the next twelve months. They'll also be announcing brand new titles and giving an insight into their plans for their channels. I hope you enjoy the updates and for more information on the festival, do visit www.mgeitf.co.uk

George Entwistle is Director, BBC Vision

• The Media Guardian Edinburgh International TV Festival starts today and goes on all weekend. Details on the official web site. Follow @edinburghtvfest on Twitter.
• The Guardian has a special page for news from the festival.
• There's also a special page on the BBC Press Office web site for announcements from the Festival.
• The picture shows an unidentified cameraman and husband and wife team Nan Kenway and Douglas Young making a BBC television programme in 1947. It's from the BBC's picture library

This evening's edition of Front Row, Radio 4's nightly arts review programme, comes from the BBC's new, purpose-built Edinburgh Festival 'pop-up' venue on the corner of Potterow and Marshall Street. We asked Front Row presenter John Wilson to talk to Caroline Raphael, Radio 4's Edinburgh Supremo, about the new venue, the highlights of the BBC's Edinburgh coverage and the history of the BBC's involvement with the festival.

Steve Bowbrick is editor of About the BBC

• All the details of the BBC's coverage of the festival are on the BBC's Edinburgh web site. Pictures of the the Potterow pop-up venue too.