Monday, November 19

BBC Children in Need breaks record

The BBC has an annual fundraising drive called Children in Need.

Last year, they raised £18.3m - with the sum reaching £33m after donations from all fund-raising was collected - and was seen by 8.9 million people at its peak.

It appears that this year is going to break all previous records... with £19m coming in during the 7 hour telethon which featured a performance by the Spice Girls. Organizers estimate the 36,000 donations were made online and 15,000 donations were made using digital TV service... and more than 212,000 phone calls were placed to operators.

Go here to listen to an interview exploring the technical requirements to handle 212,000 donation phone calls in one night.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i would take it as a badge of honor if my drtv show crashed the nation's phone system. that's crazy!

Anonymous said...

"They are rarely well-paid, so I suspect it's something to do with being motivated by things other than money. But I'd be interested to hear others' views.