'Minute by Minute': BBC Bristol to embark on 25-hour 'ordinary lives' project

From 8am on Thursday (29 March) BBC Radio Bristol will be embarking on a 25-hour project offering a peek "behind the scenes" from venues across the region, including airports, courts, hospitals and even a crematorium, to enable listeners to follow the daily occurrences which often take place out of the public eye.

The project will see BBC journalists and kit join together for the regional mission, with 30 journalists enlisted from across the broadcaster who will be dispersed into the area to cover the daily activities and hopefully capture some of the human interest stories which will undoubtedly take place along the way.

According to a report on the project by BBC magazine Ariel, the station's normal schedule will be axed for the day, to enable the reporters to "report live on the real stories taking place across the west of England".

"The station has negotiated 24-hour access to local hospitals and fire stations, while the ambulance service, airport, a farm, a magistrates' court and even a local undertaker have all agreed to be involved," Ariel reports.

As Ariel reports, the project will document "key moments in the lives of ordinary local people", from babies being born and people getting married, to the experiences of an undertaker.

The project will be called 'Minute by Minute - How the West is Done', and will see roaming reporters covering activities live as much as possible, with some locations given laptops to edit packages on site while others will be sending audio back to the team running operations back in the station's newsroom. All the journalists will be equipped with a flashmic.

And it is not just the radio team getting involved. BBC Bristol online will be running a live web page throughout the day, bringing in audio, photos, reports and tweets, assistant editor of Radio Bristol Tamsin Curnow told Journalism.co.uk.

Curnow said the station bid for funding from English Regions to enable them to go ahead with the project. It has also been supported by an influx of kit donated by other areas of the BBC, Curnow added, such as two broadcast buses, as well as equipment from the team covering the Olympic torch relay for English Regions.

As well as the journalists' reports, a number of organisations and councils will be sending in statistics throughout the day, Curnow added, such as the number of flights which have departed, or which areas have had their bins collected - to give listeners a greater understanding of what occurs on an average day in their area.

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