One Born Every Minute is a British observational documentary series which shows activities taking place in the labour ward. The programme ran for eleven series on Channel 4, premiering on 9 February 2010 and airing its final episode on 9 May 2018.

One Born Every Minute
GenreReality television
Narrated bySteven Hartley (series 3-4)
Paul Venables (series 5-8)
Jonathan Kydd (series 9-11)
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series11
No. of episodes112 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producersMagnus Temple and Nick Curwin (series 1)
Peter Moore and Sanjay Singhal (series 2)
ProducersSeries 1: Jonathan Smith (series producer)
Series 2: Francesca Newby (director of production), Lucy Bowden (series producer) and Lorraine Charker-Phillips (series director)
Production companyDragonfly
Original release
NetworkChannel 4
Release9 February 2010 (2010-02-09) –
9 May 2018 (2018-05-09)

Channel 4 announced in August 2019 that One Born Every Minute had been cancelled.[1][2]

Production

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One Born Every Minute has to date achieved the highest ratings of any "fixed rig" multicamera documentary series, with its most popular episodes attracting audiences in excess of five million. The "rig" technique for making factual television was pioneered by Dragonfly founders Nick Curwin and Magnus Temple, in partnership with Channel 4 commissioning editor Simon Dickson, in 2008.

Awards

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The first series won a 2010 BAFTA for best factual series; the second series was nominated for a 2011 BAFTA for best factual series.[3] Airlock, who designed the interactive and multimedia material to accompany the series, were nominated for a 2010 BAFTA "New Media Award".[4]

International versions

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In February 2011 an American version of One Born Every Minute premiered in the USA on Lifetime Television and in August 2011 a French adaptation named Baby Boom premiered on France's TF1. There have been two seasons of the American show and five of the French.[5][6] There have been eleven UK series.

Country Name Network Date premiered
  France Baby Boom TF1 23 August 2011
  USA One Born Every Minute Lifetime Television 1 February 2011
  Sweden En unge i minuten TV4 7 March 2011
  Israel Baby Boom Channel 10 2013
  Spain TBA TBA TBA
  Slovakia TBA TBA TBA
  Czech Republic TBA TBA 2018
  Denmark One Born Every Minute Kanal 4 2018
  Australia One Born Every Minute Australia Network 10 22 October 2019

Spoof

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The 2013 edition of the Comic Relief telethon featured a three-way spoof/mini-episode aired under the One Born Every Minute title and logo: a parody of the show's format with appearances by the cast of Call the Midwife along with Matt Smith as the Doctor from Doctor Who and closing narration by Vanessa Redgrave.[7]

References

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  1. ^ Edwards, Chris (1 August 2019). "Channel 4 confirms One Born Every Minute has been cancelled". Radio Times.
  2. ^ Bond, Kimberley (1 August 2019). "One Born Every Minute axed by Channel 4 after nearly a decade". Digital Spy.
  3. ^ "Bafta TV awards 2011: nominations in full". The Guardian. 26 April 2011. Retrieved 9 October 2011.
  4. ^ "Awards & Nominations". Airlock.com. Retrieved 9 October 2011.
  5. ^ "One Born Every Minute (US)". imdb. February 2011.
  6. ^ Baby Boom[circular reference]
  7. ^ Greg Laing (15 March 2013). "Comic Relief: Doctor Who meets Call the Midwife, One Born Every Minute". Digital Spy.
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