The Money Programme

The Money Programme was a finance and business affairs television programme on BBC Two which had a long run. It was first broadcast on 5 April 1966 and presented by "commentators" (financial journalists) William Davis, Erskine B. Childers and Joe Roeber. At this time David Attenborough was the controller of BBC2. The programme has a memorable theme tune, a version of the main title theme from The Carpetbaggers film by Lalo Schifrin (which appeared on an album by jazz organist Jimmy Smith), then by 1989, the programme was updated with new arrangements composed by George Fenton. The programme used a magazine style starting in the 1980s, but changed to a single subject documentary in 2001. More recently the programme has formed a partnership with the Open University Business School. The Open University provides input into programmes and supplementary materials written by OU Business School academics. On 1 June 2007, an episode of the Money Programme called "Virtual World / Real Millions" became the first full BBC programme to have been broadcast inside the virtual world Second Life. That episode featured an interview with Second Life founder and CEO Philip Rosedale amongst others. This programme was parodied in Series 3 of Monty Python's Flying Circus as the opening sketch of the third episode in that series first airing on the BBC 3 November 1972.