Documentaries & Specials
Each month, the BBC World Service offers new documentaries and specials selected specifically for U.S. audiences, with in-depth, relevant reporting. Typically one-hour, or two half-hours on a similar topic, they offer great content for any time of day, and satisfy audiences' needs for deeper narratives and more reflective listening.
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Discussion and Documentary: Rewriting a Revolution
Air window: February 28 - March 27, 2026
One hour
On February 25, 1986, the Philippines, Asia’s oldest democracy, peacefully took control of its destiny. Ferdinand Marcos, a democratically elected president-turned-dictator accused of widespread graft and human rights abuses, had gambled on one too many rigged elections. After days of mounting protests and the defection of the military to the opposition, Marcos and his family were ejected from their gilded palace in Manila. These events have since been named the People Power Revolution.
The uprising ushered in a return to constitutional democracy, guardrails on executive power, and a new constitution that redistributed power from Manila to local governments across the 7,500-island archipelago. It was also supposed to seal the fate of the Marcoses once and for all: permanent exile in Hawaii. At least, so the Filipinos thought.
Forty years on, not only are the Marcoses back, but they’re arguably stronger than ever. Ferdinand’s eldest, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, is now president, with his sister, son, and various cousins in Congress. It’s a far cry from the Philippines of 1986, when the post-revolution state vowed ‘never again’ to let any Marcos near the halls of power.
But the story of the last four decades isn’t simply one of a profound Marcos restoration. While the family has certainly been adept at resurrection, the story of the postrevolutionary Philippines can’t be separated from the failures of the post-revolutionary state. Politics remains dynastic, the economy profoundly unequal, while corrupt officials rarely face accountability. It’s a cocktail for popular disaffection with democracy itself.
World Book Club: Laurent Binet - HHhH
Air window: March 7 - April 7, 2026
One hour
Harriett Gilbert welcomes the French author Laurent Binet to the World Book Club studio to answer your questions about his acclaimed novel HHhH.
The book tells the story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust, and the daring mission carried out by Czech resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Prague. At the same time, Binet places himself into the narrative, obsessively questioning how history should be told, where fact ends and fiction begins, and whether a writer ever has the right to blur that line.
Recorded in front of a live audience at The American Library in Paris, Laurent will be answering your questions about blending history and fiction without betraying the truth, why he chose to make himself writing part of the story itself, and how storytelling is an attempt to confront, or make sense of, the darkest moments in history.
World Questions: Guyana
Air window: March 14 - April 13, 2026
One hour
Guyana has the world's fastest growing economy - thanks to the discovery of vast amounts of offshore oil. But will the benefits of the find be shared equitably among the country's population? Jonny Dymond is joined by a panel of leading politicians who will take questions from a large public audience, in the country's capital, Georgetown.
Hope and Fear - India's Space Revolution
Air window: March 21 - April 17, 2026
One hour
For decades, India focused its space program on limited, inexpensive projects directly benefiting its citizens, such as weather satellites and communications networks. But in recent years, the country earned global recognition with a series of audacious exploratory missions – sending probes to the lunar south pole and Mars.
Now, the most ambitious mission yet is underway: India will send humans into space. Science journalist Alok Jha speaks to people at the heart of this radical shift to understand how it is happening and what’s driving it. Dr Madhavan Nair, former Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) takes us inside the room where it all began, a high-stakes one-to-one meeting with the prime minister of the time. We relive tense moments of ISRO’s famous Mars mission with its Science Director, Dr Seetha Somasundaram. And Indian-American astronaut Anil Menon counts down to his own launch mission. We also visit India’s leading rocket company to witness a start-up boom.
Alongside all the excitement, there are also important questions. Why has India decided to channel so much effort and investment into space exploration? What benefits will it bring to the population? And is ISRO being transparent about its failures, as well as its amazing successes? As India’s historic human spaceflight launch approaches, the program reflects on the hopes and fears driving not only this country’s space program, but the entire 21st-century space age.
From famine to hope - Women reshape Madagascar
Air window: March 28 - April 24, 2026
Half hour
Today, Madagascar is one of the most food insecure countries in the world and women and children are the most vulnerable. This despite the fact that women produce around 80% of the country’s food yet own less than 10% of the land.
Lying off the south-eastern coast of Africa, Madagascar has been pushed into crisis by a deadly combination of climate change, poverty and environmental degradation. In 2021, more than 1.6 million people faced acute food insecurity, while nearly half of all children under five were chronically malnourished. Rainfall has become increasingly unpredictable, and when it does arrive it often comes as destructive cyclones, wiping out entire seasons of crops.
In southern Madagascar, forests no longer cast shade over the villages of Androy. Once celebrated as the “Green Island” for its extraordinary biodiversity, Madagascar is now known as the “Red Island”, its deep red soil exposed by decades of deforestation, drought and environmental collapse. The land has turned to dust, harvests have failed and famine has followed.
Journalist Georgie Styles travels from the war-like scenes and dust-choked streets of Ambovombe, the capital of the Androy region, to the windswept farms of the Tsimananada commune. Along the way, she meets women from across Madagascar who are defying famine and patriarchal norms, experimenting with agro-ecological farming and adapting to a rapidly changing climate, determined not just to survive, but to reclaim their land and their future.
Namibia’s hydrogen superpower dream
Air window: March 28 - April 24, 2026
Half hour
A near-pristine desert wilderness on Southern Africa’s remote Atlantic coast, in Namibia, could soon be hosting a huge green hydrogen development, raising concerns for the area’s unique plant and animal life, but also hopes for wealth and desperately needed jobs.
Namibia’s young population is struggling, with youth unemployment among the highest in the world. Many are hoping they’ll have a part to play in Namibia’s green energy future and Johannes speaks to officials who believe the project could transform the country’s future.
World Book Club: Ragnar Jonasson - The Darkness
Air window: April 4 - May 1, 2026
One hour
Ragnar Jonasson talks about his thriller - The Darkness. When Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir is unceremoniously told she is being forced into early retirement, she is given the chance to work on one last Cold Case - anything she likes. The case she chooses to revive centers on the death of a Russian asylum seeker; a 27 year old woman who had been found dead on the icy shore a year before.
As Hulda reopens the case, she discovers that another young woman disappeared at the same time — and that crucial facts have been withheld. Witnesses are evasive, records incomplete, and even her fellow officers appear determined to stall her investigation. With only two weeks to uncover the truth, Hulda must uncover what really happened, even at the risk of her own life.
Ragnar answers listeners’ questions about how he created his detective, Hulda, and how the Icelandic landscape shapes his characters and stories. Did he realize the ending of the novel would shock so many of his readers?
World Questions: Nepal
Air window: April 11 - May 8, 2026
One hour
Last autumn Nepal’s youth uprising led to a ban on social media, an attack on parliament and multiple deaths of young people as police fired on protesters in the capital’s streets. Nepal’s Gen Z wanted accountability for corruption, jobs for the young, freedom of expression and political reform. The army brokered a deal with the leaders of the movement and the crisis ended with an interim government and the promise of new elections.
One month after those elections, what is the way forward for Nepal? Can a new government deliver on its promises and will the young be satisfied? Jonny Dymond chairs a panel drawn from both Nepal’s youth movement and the political establishment as they debate questions from the public in Kathmandu.
In Our Time - the Mariana Trench
Air window: April 18 - May 15, 2026
One hour
Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the wonders of the natural world.
In 1875 in the western Pacific, the crew of HMS Challenger discovered the Mariana Trench which turned out to be deeper than Everest is high, by two kilometers. Trenches like Mariana form when one tectonic plate slips under another and heads down and there are around fifty of them globally. While at one time some thought it was too dark and deep for life there and others wildly imagined monsters, the truth has turned out to be much more surprising
Last Dance Floor in Chernobyl
Air window: April 25 - May 22, 2026
One hour
On the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Last Dancefloor in Chernobyl tells the untold stories from in and around the city: what life was like leading up to the meltdown, and life since, including the five weeks in 2022 when Russian armed forces occupied Chernobyl.
The stories are told through the fashion, music and relationships that young people found in Pripyat and the town’s nightclub – ‘Edison 2’.
What has been forgotten is that the young people who survived the nuclear meltdown in April 1986 stayed to maintain the damaged power plant and keep it safe. They saw the fall of the Soviet Union and created new identities, until the Russian invasion once again turned their lives upside down. These three events that changed the world are told in a very different way - through the people that were there.
Broadcast Rights
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