Jan Leeming: was my jewellery show idea hijacked for All That Glitters?

The BBC has billed its latest show, All That Glitters, as a “brand new talent search” to find Britain’s best jeweller.

But to Jan Leeming, the veteran television presenter, the concept is familiar. Leeming sent an "identical" proposal to the corporation in 2017, and has now asked if her idea was “hijacked”.

Leeming, for decades one of the BBC’s most popular newsreaders, came up with the idea after taking jewellery classes and deciding that it was a subject that would interest audiences.

She approached the BBC with her idea and an executive said they would forward it to a production company. However, Leeming was later told that it would not be taken forward.

The first she learned of the new BBC Two show was when a friend sent her an email that read: “Jan, we were very surprised to see All That Glitters and you weren’t presenting it.”

On Twitter, Leeming said she was “angry and upset” to see the programme on air and said that it had “all the elements” of her proposal.

She told her followers that she had “put [an] identical proposal to the Corporation in 2017 - it is impossible to patent an idea so who is to say who got there first”.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Leeming said: “Ten years ago I began adult education jewellery classes and I thought, right, if I can do it then other people can. There was a 94-year-old lady in the class who made some beautiful work that could have gone into a jewellery shop.

“So my premise all along was to make this something that the public would say, ‘Wow, I can do that.’”

Her proposal included a series of heats and the presence of two professional jewellers as judges, both ideas replicated in All That Glitters.

Leeming followed advice given to her by Lord Grade, the former BBC chairman, and posted a copy of the proposal to herself as proof of her idea.

Asked if she thought the programme was a copy of her own proposal, Leeming said: “I can’t say that, because you can’t patent an idea. For all I know, that might be the same production company and they resurrected it. I wasn’t told.”

She had hoped to present the show herself. For All That Glitters, the presenter is Katherine Ryan, the comedian and actress.

“For a while there seems to have been this move that anything documentary or documentary-like is presented by an actor or a comedian,” said Leeming, 79.

“When I saw it I was very upset and yes, I do have an axe to grind because comedians and actors are out of their environment. An actor needs a script, an interviewer doesn’t.”

She wrote on her blog: “Yes, I am gutted that All That Glitters has been made the way it has and I am not the presenter - I’m only human but I do know a lot about jewellery, jewels and jewellery-making which I doubt the comedian does.”

None of the contestants on All That Glitters are amateurs. Leeming explained: “I’ve heard it said that my project would not get anywhere because jewellery is elitist - which is rubbish. The way the programme has been produced has certainly kept it in the elitist category and I’m sure will not encourage members of the public to take up jewellery-making as a hobby.”

Leeming said she was not making any criticism of the BBC, which had passed on her idea to a production company.

“In the past, you could just write to a commissioning editor and put your idea to them. Now you must go through a production company, and every time you go through a production company and talk about your idea, you are spreading it.”

A BBC spokesperson said: “All That Glitters is an original format developed by Twenty Twenty Productions.”