International Broadcasts Wiki
Human Planet

Narrated by

John Hurt

Country of origin

United Kingdom

Seasons and episodes

1 season, 8 episodes

Production companies

BBC Natural History Unit
BBC Cymru Wales
Discovery Channel
France Télévisions

Original network

BBC One
BBC HD

Original release

13 January – 3 March 2011


Human Planet is an 8-part British television documentary series. It is produced by the BBC with co-production from Discovery and BBC Worldwide. It describes the human species and its relationship with the natural world by showing the remarkable ways humans have adapted to life in every environment on Earth. The show drew attention for alleged fakery and the BBC eventually acknowledged that a number of scenes were inaccurately depicted or misleading and withdrew the series from distribution.

Announced in 2007, the production teams based at the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol and BBC Wales spent three years shooting over 70 stories in some of the most remote locations on Earth spanning about 40 countries. Each episode of the series focuses on a different human-inhabited environment, including deserts, jungles, the Arctic, grasslands, rivers, mountains, oceans, and the urban landscape.

For the first time on a BBC landmark series the production had a dedicated stills photographer, Timothy Allen, who documented the project photographically for the books and multimedia that accompany the series.

Human Planet was originally screened in the UK on BBC One each Thursday at 8pm over eight weeks, starting from 13 January 2011. Domestic repeats have been seen on Eden, with all 8 episodes aired over one week in April 2012. BBC Worldwide has since announced they have sold the broadcast rights to 22 international markets.

International broadcast[]

Country Network Narrator
United Kingdom BBC One, Eden John Hurt
Australia ABC1
New Zealand Prime
Singapore  BBC Knowledge
Brazil Discovery Channel Milton Nascimento
China CCTV-9, CCTV-1 Unknown
Finland YLE TV1 Tuomo Holopainen
France France 5 Fabien Autin
Germany Servus TV, ZDF, ZDFneo Unknown
Hong Kong TVB Pearl Wong He
Iran  IRIB Mostanad Unknown
Israel Channel 1 Kobi Meidan
Latin America Discovery Channel Gael García Bernal
Netherlands Nederland 2 (Omroep NTR) Carice Van Houten
Philippines GMA News TV, GMA Network Kara David
Portugal Canal Odisseia Unknown
Turkey NTV Tuncel Kurtiz
United States (English) Discovery Channel Mike Rowe
United States (Spanish) Discovery en Español Gael García Bernal