Friday 26 Jun 09

What is Eden?

An unspoilt paradise? 

I suppose most people would think that.  Our channel, showing the best natural history and adventure programmes in the world, aims to show the world in all its beauty and wonder. This means everything from animal behaviour and glorious landscapes to extraordinary people and life-endangering exploration.  Through this, hopefully we're going some way towards meeting audience expectation of what would be on a channel called 'Eden'.

I get a thrill when I see some creature, place, or situation that I know I will never see in person.  In the TV age, we take for granted underwater images of whales, or magnificent aerial shots of waterfalls.  What we forget is that 99.999% of all the people who ever lived never even saw an image of such things, let alone witness a heli-gimballed fly-over.  Even for those of us alive today, very few will get to scuba dive in arctic waters or scale Everest; still less penetrate unexplored jungle or discover a new species.  It's these astonishing aspects of our natural world, brought to us exclusively through the film lens, that never fail to excite me.