Word: bbc
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...scholarship to Cambridge. He loved jazz and American movies, so he got a grant to study at Yale and Harvard, and within a year the most famous person in the world, Charlie Chaplin, asked him to collaborate on a screenplay. He chafed under authority, so he got the BBC to let him do a Letter from America, in which he'd talk for 15 minutes a week on whatever he liked; that gig lasted for 58 years. What he didn't like was his drab name, Albert, so he changed it to Alistair. Alistair Cooke...
...Cambridge don was right: he had a journalist's mind to go with a diplomat's gifts of persuasion and tact. In the '30s he talked himself into a job as the BBC's movie critic. Soon he was doing political reportage and a kind of social commentary, never taking sides (even his children didn't know whom he'd voted for). In these stints, as in his Masterpiece Theater introductions, he'd often sketch out a speech, then deliver it without script or teleprompter, trusting his memory and high-wire poise. He was as much an improv master...
...boundaries. When a Japanese real estate firm snapped up Rockefeller Center in the 1980s, the deal unleashed unease among some Americans, who feared that Japan was literally taking over America. But this time around, its campaign for global hearts and minds has been far more successful. According to a BBC poll this year, Japan ranks second in the world when it comes to a positive global image. (Germany barely edged out Japan for the No. 1 spot, while the U.S. was seventh.) "Soft power is a very strong force," says Heizo Takenaka, Japan's former Minister of State for Economic...
...around. Hiring the comedian, rally driver and TV DIY star used in the U.S. pilot took six months. "What you won't want to do is lose the essence of Top Gear, which is ... the independence of spirit, in which people can say things they absolutely believe in," says BBC Worldwide's Garvie...
...That can often mean poking fun at cars the show disapproves of. And in markets where automakers' advertising dollars are welcomed (the BBC doesn't air ads in the U.K.), some worry that freedom could be compromised. In the U.S., "I don't think you could be quite as freewheeling with your opinions as you can on the BBC, because sponsors pay for the programs," talk-show host Jay Leno, a fan of the U.K. show who turned down the chance to front the American pilot, wrote in Britain's Sunday Times newspaper in March. Garvie swats away the suggestion...