City Hospital (British TV series)

City Hospital
Genre	Medical documentary
Presented by	See below
Theme music composer	Bruce Hornsby
Opening theme	"The Way It Is"
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	16 + 1 special
No. of episodes	655
Production
Production locations	Southampton General Hospital (1998–2001) Guy's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital (2002–2007)
Running time	50 minutes
Production company	Topical Television
Original release
Network	BBC One
Release	12 October 1998 (1998-10-12) – 5 January 2007 (2007-01-05)
Related
The General

City Hospital was a medical documentary television series that aired on BBC One from 12 October 1998 until 5 January 2007. It ran over nine series with over 360 hours of film broadcast every weekday from 10 am. It was the successor to The General and initially kept the same location, format and presentation team.

Format

City Hospital was first broadcast live from Southampton University Trust's teaching hospital, Southampton General Hospital but also featured Princess Anne Maternity Hospital. It then moved to London's flagship NHS Health Trust - Guy's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital in 2002. The show followed real patients and staff and featured daily live-to-air footage of actual surgical operations, as they were being performed. The show's theme tune was an instrumental version of Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is". Both The General and City Hospital were produced by Topical Television.

Ratings

A ratings success, the final series commanded a quarter of all the UK television audience at 10am every weekday - over a million viewers daily.

The programme had unprecedented BBC Audience Appreciation (AI) figures for a daytime broadcast. When viewers were asked which programme they would put at the top of all the BBC programmes they had watched that week, City Hospital consistently scored highly. During the last week of programmes, the AI figure was an almost unheard of 88%. The BBC reported: "Alongside the usual big hitters, the dramas and US imports, the daytime programme City Hospital always wins through with high AIs."

Yvette Fielding's live proposal

In 1999 Yvette Fielding's boyfriend Karl Beattie, a cameraman on the show, proposed to her live on air. She accepted and the two later married.

Presenters

Presenters included:

• Gaby Roslin
• Matt Baker
• Roger Black
• Yvette Fielding
• Ainsley Harriott
• Matthew Kelly
• Nick Knowles
• Andi Peters
• Nadia Sawalha
• Sian Williams

Numerous guest presenters, including celebrities, actors and musicians, made cameo appearances.

Transmission guide

Filmed at Southampton General Hospital:

• Series 1: 50 editions from 12 October – 18 December 1998
• Series 2: 28 editions from 12 April – 21 May 1999
• Series 3: 64 editions from 6 September – 17 December 1999
• Series 4: 42 editions from 27 March – 26 May 2000
• Series 5: 51 editions from 4 September – 19 December 2000
• Series 6: 46 editions from 30 April – 6 July 2001

Filmed at Guy's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital:

• Series 7: 29 editions from 18 February – 28 March 2002
• Series 8: 40 editions from 2 September – 25 October 2002
• Series 9: 39 editions from 6 May – 4 July 2003
• Series 10: 30 editions from 1 September – 10 October 2003
• Series 11: 37 editions from 5 April – 28 May 2004
• Series 12: 40 editions from 6 September – 5 November 2004
• Series 13: 37 editions from 4 April – 27 May 2005
• Series 14: 40 editions from 5 September – 4 November 2005
• Series 15: 37 editions from 3 April – 26 May 2006
• Series 16: 40 editions from 11 September – 10 November 2006
• Winter Health Special: 5 editions from 1 January 2007 – 5 January 2007

External links

• City Hospital at BBC Online