The new ad features Alan Carr, Peter Capaldi, Sara Cox, Graham Norton and Vernon Kay
Claudia Winkleman has featured in a new BBC campaign just days after announcing that she has quit her talk show.
It’s been a frantic period for Claudia, who presents The Traitors and spin-off The Celebrity Traitors for the BBC, with her stepping down from presenting Strictly Come Dancing after 15 years last December, alongside co-host Tess Daly. The duo were seen bowing out of their roles back in December.
Earlier in the year, viewers saw her interview celebrity guests in front of a studio audience for the first time on The Claudia Winkleman Show. The Friday night show featured the likes of Jennifer Saunders, Dan Levy and Jeff Goldblum as guests.
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Of the chat show’s future, Claudia said last week: “I’m incredibly grateful to the BBC for giving me the opportunity, to the guests who agreed to come and chat to me, and the production team who were simply excellent.
“Sometimes you have to try something to see how it fits, and I realised I was just too nervous to enjoy it. Maybe one day I will give it another try, but for now I already have the best jobs in the world and absolutely love the shows I’m doing.”
On Sunday (July 19), Claudia was one of early 100 stars taking part in a new campaign to promote the BBC. Fronted by comedian Romesh Ranganathan, the three-minute film brings together 90 household names from across the BBC.
The ad celebrates the BBC’s ‘extraordinary cultural footprint to answer one simple question: What has the BBC ever done for me?’. Romesh is seen traveling through a string of the best-known BBC programmes, sets and studios, encountering familiar faces that each help him answer the question in their own way.
Kicking off in EastEnders’ famous Queen Vic pub, Romesh reads the front page of a paper that asks ‘Is the BBC really worth it?’. He then tells barmaid Tracey, played by Jane Slaughter: “It’s a good question. You have got to ask – what has the BBC ever done for me?”
A man playing the piano with his back turned to the camera is then revealed to be Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, before a string of stars are rolled out, including Claudia. She is seen standing beside two of the Traitors’ hooded figures as she pulls a pint of ‘Traitors Ale’.
Stepping out into the street, Romesh tells viewers that the BBC has responsible for ‘introducing the nation to Adele’, verifies news ‘thoroughly’, and also offers Mary Berry, Glastonbury and ‘celebs on the telly’.
The campaign then highlights how the BBC delivers coverage of Wimbledon, ‘a love of nature’ through shows including Springwatch, and even avoids having advertisements. Walking through the set of Call The Midwife, Romesh says the BBC ‘does a lot for British storytelling’.
Pushing back against critics of the national broadcaster, he declares ‘stuff your Apprentice and Match Of The Day’ before Louis Theroux appears in a studio with his hand hovering over a switch and warning that ‘none of this exists if we don’t want it to’.
Handed a folder, Romesh then reads out statistics that state that the money the public pays to the BBC creates more than six and half billion pounds for the economy, which he adds sounds ‘pretty good’.
The ad concludes with him being pushed onto a stage which turns out to be the Strictly dancefloor, he asks viewers one final time, ‘What has the BBC ever done for me?’, before judge Anton Du Beke appears and holds up a score paddle showing a 10 but is told to ‘bog off’.
Wrapping up the ad, text on screen reads: “There’s a BBC for each of us. Funded by all of us.”
The campaign film also features Alan Carr, Peter Capaldi, Sara Cox, Graham Norton, Vernon Kay, Greg James and Ruth Jones. On top of this Cate Blanchett, Daisy Ridley, Chris McCausland, Clive Myrie and Stacey Solomon, as well as Pudsey Bear and a number of Daleks also appear.
Inspired by the 1986 BBC campaign featuring John Cleese, the new film reimagines the question for a generation 40 years later. It was directed by Paddington In Peru’s Dougal Wilson and features music from Ben Foster, Ben Bailey Smith and Andy Burrows, performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra and BBC Singers.
In a blog to accompany the campaign, the BBC chief customer officer Kerris Bright wrote that the aim of the campaign was to ‘ensure the BBC gets credit for the fundamental impact it has on society, as well as the things it makes’.
She added the campaign came at an ‘important moment’ahead of the Government beginning the process of renewing the BBC’s Royal Charter and how the organisation should be funded.

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