TELEVISION / Animals

Robin Hellier, producer of Nightshift (BBC2), on live wildlife television: 'It's quite a gamble. There is a risk that for 10 minutes absolutely nothing will happen. You try to ensure that this isn't the case. For instance, our barn owl, as it's got young, and since we managed to get a camera in its nest, then we can always rely on it. You might lose your mobile stars - the foxes, the badgers, the bats - but you always have some reliables. We chose this particular barn owl because we were told it was more tolerant than most others. The series has worked in that we've given a feeling of what it's like out there after dark, but we could have been more lucky with our animals.'