This June will see the launch of Money & Power – a major new season of programmes and features across the BBC’s global TV, radio and online networks exploring how the basic building blocks of our lives are being shaped and reshaped by money.

Reporting from countries across the world - China, Korea, Pakistan, Israel, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Sweden, Spain and the US - the month-long exploration will look at how money, and the power it brings, can define our relationships and our lives.  The season will look at how, and why, money causes some relationships to prosper and others to fail.

Stephen Titherington, Commissioning Editor, BBC World Service English, said: “The world is getting richer, but the age old questions remain about what good these riches do, and how they are shared across society and across our own families. This is an intimate look at money, and relationships - from owning empty mansions in the Punjab to getting back on your feet after bankruptcy in Miami.  This is as much about families as it is about global finance, as we test the reality of living together whether it's for richer or for poorer."

This diverse collection of unique stories will explore, from a personal point of view: winning the lottery, building your dream home, the hidden world of the financial dominatrix, facing financial money clinics as a couple, living in gated communities in Honduras, being an only child in Sweden and Portugal, getting married in Uganda, and in the US and Mexico asking what our teeth say about us to others.

The Money & Power season is the result of the BBC World Service’s annual ‘Creative Challenge’ in which BBC staff, regardless of role, can put forward their own ideas.  The selected entries are then made into radio and TV programmes and additional digital content which are then broadcast and published across the BBC’s global services in different languages.