The remit of BBC Four is to be a mixed-genre television channel for all adults, offering an ambitious range of innovative, high-quality output that is intellectually and culturally enriching. Its focus should be on the provision of factual and arts programming.

BBC Four will continue to contribute towards the delivery of the BBC's public purposes in the range of ways set out in its service licence. Key developments in the way in which the service will contribute to each purpose are outlined below. These are designed to address the priorities identified by the BBC Trust, future-proof the delivery of the purposes, and address perceived gaps in delivery in line with strategies in the BBC's purpose plans.

1 Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence

• Priority: BBC Four will aim to enhance the delivery of this purpose through commissioning a wide range of highly distinctive output covering a diverse agenda. It will widen the choice of film and documentary available on television and provide space for complexity, intellectual curiosity and authorship, in particular in arts and culture.
• Priority: In music, the channel will work more closely with the Proms to provide greater context through new documentaries alongside world-class performance. It will build on recent success in music documentary with landmark series on Western sacred music and American folk music, as well as biographies of Vaughan Williams and Quincy Jones. In the arts, Andrew Graham-Dixon will investigate the birth of the idea of the artist in the Italian Renaissance, and Waldemar Januszczak will explore the Baroque. The channel will also celebrate classic travel literature and photography, children's illustration and the architecture of Palladio.

2 Promoting education and learning

• Priority: BBC Four will continue to make a major contribution to the BBC's purpose in knowledge-building, offering a greater context and depth than any other BBC channel. It will continue to feature an ambitious range of subject matter and often create space in peak hours to do things that mainstream channels find difficult, such as exploring a single theme in great detail. It will also work in even closer collaboration with BBC Two to deepen the impact of the BBC's knowledge-building offer for the audience.
• Priority: The channel will continue its successful strategy of using seasons and theme weeks to enhance the impact of its contribution to this purpose. This year will feature historical seasons such as Inside the Medieval Mind, a month-long exploration of the culture and achievements of the Middle Ages. The observational Modern Childhood season will enter the world of 21st-century British children and see it through their eyes. In addition BBC Four will broadcast landmark series on current thinking in prenatal science, Islamic science, mathematics, the history of surgery and the natural history of wildernesses.

3 Bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK

• Priority: BBC Four will make a significant contribution to the BBC's purpose priorities in this area, broadening UK audiences' experience of and exposure to different cultures from around the world. It will continue to offer a home for the best international and foreign-language feature films and documentaries, including Storyville as well as international news. This year the channel will add a foreign-language drama series to the mix, premiering La Meglio Gioventù, the multi-award-winning six-hour Italian epic drama. It will also present a trio of documentaries on the 60th anniversary of the birth of Israel and, for the BBC's Year of China, BBC Four will contribute Chinese School, set in the rural town of Anhui, and The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World.

4 Delivering the benefit of emerging communications technologies

• Priority: BBC Four contributes to this purpose by using its website to encourage virtual communities to exchange views and ideas examined and explored in our programmes. This year it will build on the success of recent seasons, looking to enhance the richness of the television offer with additional depth and range of content on the web and behind the red button. The channel will also explore developing better links with specific online communities of enthusiasts and bloggers, and it plans to enhance the content of the website so that viewers can review and even suggest programming ideas from the archive.

5 Representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities

• BBC Four will continue to make a particular contribution to the delivery of this purpose in arts and culture by continuing to celebrate performers and performance from across the nations and regions of the UK. In addition, this year the channel's interest in recent social history will turn to the effect of the Beeching cuts on British life, while In Search of Medieval England will aim to uncover the surviving aspects of the medieval around the UK.
• In music, The BBC Young Musician of the Year will showcase the very best musical talent from across all parts of the UK.

6 Sustaining citizenship and civil society

• BBC Four will continue to contribute to this purpose principally through its documentary output and news analysis. It will aim to maintain its distinctive role in this area with series reflecting a diverse range of experiences of life in the UK. Subjects will include the Jews in contemporary Britain, and children, in a Modern Childhood season, and The Black Power Salute and Flying will examine individual stories in the progress of equality. The new series Department Stores will reflect on the conflict between local and national on British high streets, putting the spotlight on very different sections of society and the struggle for survival by community-based stores.

In these commitments, peak time is defined as 19.00–24.00 hours.

The following quotas are agreed with Ofcom and are measured across a calendar year (results are published in the BBC Annual Report and Accounts):

• Approximately 70% of hours and 50% of hours in peak to be original productions (original productions include all BBC-commissioned programming, excluding repeats of programming first shown on another BBC public service channel).

And in conjunction with other BBC network television services:

• A minimum of 30% of relevant programme production budgets, representing a minimum of 25% hours of productions by volume, to be spent outside the M25.
• To maintain the current broad range of programmes produced outside the M25, and broad range of different production centres used across the UK.
• A minimum of 25% of qualifying hours across all of the BBC's network and non-network television services are provided by independent producers.

The BBC observes Ofcom's Access Services Code. BBC Four has the following targets:

• A minimum of 90% of qualifying programming hours to have subtitling. Additionally, the BBC aims to subtitle 100% of actual programmes on the channel.
  (The relevant 12-month period runs from 1 April.)
• A minimum of 5% of qualifying programme hours to have signing.
  (The relevant 12-month period runs from 1 November.)
• A minimum of 10% of qualifying programme hours to have audio description.
  (The relevant 12-month period runs from 1 November.)

In these commitments, peak time is defined as 19.00–24.00 hours.

The following quotas are agreed with Ofcom and are measured across a calendar year (results are published in the BBC Annual Report and Accounts):

• A minimum of 80% of all hours, and 70% of hours in peak, to be original productions (original productions include all BBC-commissioned programming, excluding repeats of programming first shown on another BBC public service channel).

And in conjunction with other BBC network television services:

• A minimum of 30% of relevant programme production budgets, representing a minimum of 25% hours of productions by volume, to be spent outside the M25.
• To maintain the current broad range of programmes produced outside the M25, and broad range of different production centres used across the UK.
• A minimum of 25% of qualifying hours across all of the BBC's network and non-network television services are provided by independent producers.

And in conjunction with other BBC network television services:

• A minimum of 30% of relevant programme production budgets, representing a minimum of 25% hours of productions by volume, to be spent outside the M25.
• To maintain the current broad range of programmes produced outside the M25, and broad range of different production centres used across the UK.
• A minimum of 25% of qualifying hours across all of the BBC's network and non-network television services are provided by independent producers.

The BBC observes Ofcom's Access Services Code. BBC Three has the following targets:

• A minimum of 90% of qualifying programming hours to have subtitling. Additionally, the BBC aims to subtitle 100% of actual programmes on the channel.
  (The relevant 12-month period runs from 1 April.)
• A minimum of 5% of qualifying programme hours to have signing.
  (The relevant 12-month period runs from 1 November.)
• A minimum of 10% of qualifying programme hours to have audio description.
  (The relevant 12-month period runs from 1 November.)