Big Cat Diary, also known as Big Cat Week or Big Cat Live, is a long-running nature documentary series on BBC television which follows the lives of African big cats in Kenya’s Masai Mara. The first series, broadcast on BBC One in 1996, was developed and jointly produced by Keith Scholey, who would go on to become Head of the BBC’s Natural History Unit. The original presenters, Jonathan Scott and Simon King, were joined by Saba Douglas-Hamilton from 2002 onwards.

The Natural History Unit originally wanted to film in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, but when this proved too expensive, they switched to Kenya. Filming is timed to coincide with the arrival of the annual wildebeest migration in the Mara, which is when the most predators gather to take advantage of abundant prey. Each series has followed the daily lives of a lion pride, a cheetah family and a leopard family.

The crew, which can number up to 60 people, use specially modified 4WD vehicles to travel around the Mara, tracking, spotting and filming the cats. The presenters also travel in the vehicles, addressing the camera as the action unfolds in front of them. They use names and develop personalities for particular cats to draw the audience into a relationship with them, creating empathy for the characters.

The similarity to soap operas has led to Big Cat Diary being called "the original wildlife soap opera". Notwithstanding the popularity of the show, this technique has drawn criticism from some quarters for trivialising and sanitising the natural world. Originally intended to be a one-off series, Big Cat Diary proved so popular that a further eight series have been broadcast to date, plus occasional specials.

Recent series have drawn audiences of over 7 million viewers to BBC One, and spawned a number of other programmes using the same 'Wildlife Diary' format, including Elephant Diaries (2005, 2008), Chimp Week (2005), Big Bear Week (2006) and Orangutan Diary (2007). For the first few series, the episodes were broadcast weekly, but since 2004, they have been shown on consecutive nights over the course of a single week. The 2004, 2005 and 2006 series were called Big Cat Week.

Since 2005, the Big Cat Diary website has carried additional video footage from the field and in 2006, a spin-off series called Big Cat Uncut was broadcast on BBC Three immediately after the BBC One episodes. Big Cat Raw, a spin-off webcast on the BBC big cat website accompanied Big Cat Live in 2008. In July 2008, the BBC Natural History Unit announced it would be returning to the Masai Mara in October 2008 for its most ambitious live international broadcast, Big Cat Live.

Kate Silverton and local Masai guide Jackson Looseyia join Simon King and Jonathan Scott for the nightly live programmes on BBC One. Saba Douglas-Hamilton will not return to present the series. Additional content will be broadcast on CBeebies and bbc.co.uk and the new website has already gone on air.

The live programmes aired between the 5th and 12th of October 2008. An update show is planned at Christmas.

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