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Statements of Programme Policy

Radio 2 Programme Policy 2010/2011

Service remit

The remit of Radio 2 is to be a distinctive mixed music and speech service, targeted at a broad audience, appealing to all age groups over 35.

It should offer entertaining popular music programmes and speech-based content including news, current affairs, documentaries, religion, arts, comedy, readings and social action output.

Controller's vision for the service in 2010/2011

Radio 2 aims to maintain a mass audience for BBC Radio through a range of stimulating original music and speech programmes that are hallmarked with entertainment value. In a schedule that has been radically reshaped, with major new programmes in key breakfast and drivetime slots, we will offer broadcasting that is positive and warm in tone, and that celebrates creativity and quality.

Our pivotal role in music will continue, extending listeners' tastes and supporting artists. The station's commitment to live music will be extended through the refocusing of the BBC Electric Proms, which will become wholly associated with Radio 2 from 2010.

We will continue to showcase the rich popular culture of the nation, drawing upon the best of our comedy heritage in a refocused commitment that will also offer opportunities for new writers and performers, and celebrating our indigenous musical forms such as brass and folk.

We aim to use the size and breadth of our audience to deliver strong public value. Radio 2 will continue to build its appeal to a broad range of audiences, including those over 50. We want inclusiveness to be at the heart of Radio 2's programming, characterised by multigenerational listening, interaction and engagement.

We recognise the opportunity of offering current affairs to more difficult to reach parts of the population, encouraging participation and empowerment. These are themes we will explore further through new activity aimed at extending media literacy.

It is our ambition to provide a service that continues to offer surprises but at the same time is more cohesive, with our digital offer taking a central role. We will further develop new opportunities in our daytime output to reflect the specialist music programmes and documentary output of the evening schedule.

Bob Shennan, Controller, BBC Radio 2

Key challenges for Radio 2 in 2010/2011

Challenge: Radio 2 will seek to maintain the reach of its weekday schedule.

• Chris Evans will consolidate his role replacing Terry Wogan, alongside Simon Mayo in the drivetime programme. However, these changes impact on the station's largest audience driver and content, style and tone will be carefully monitored by the station's management.

Challenge: Radio 2 will seek to provide more distinctive content during the daytime.

• Radio 2 will further integrate peak and off-peak content. It will also take a more ambitious approach to campaigns intended to enhance awareness of particular topics that bring cultural and social benefits across the diversity of the daytime schedule.
• Jeremy Vine's show will pick up themes from documentaries which are broadcast in the evening, such as the 52-part series Tim Rice's American Pie.
• Extracts from new evening comedy output will be previewed in Steve Wright's show.

Challenge: Radio 2 will aim to refresh and refocus its comedy output to gain greater impact from existing levels of investment in this genre, ensuring differentiation from comedy on Radio 4. The output will deliver two main themes:

• Reinforcing the link between the station and landmark UK comedy through documentaries, such as those on Peter Sellers, Bob Monkhouse, Tommy Cooper and Dave Allen, and in a new history of the Carry On films. Ronnie Corbett will feature in a four-part series of sketches and monologues. A four-part comedy panel show, Never Write Off The Germans, will tie in with World Cup programming. A Michael McIntyre series will showcase his favourite comics and clips.
• Maintaining the commitment to new writing and performing talent, including a co-production between BBC Comedy and BBC Scotland to identify Radio 2's New Stand-Up Of The Year. To tie in with Black History month, Craig Charles will host a two-part showcase of the UK's best talent from the black stand-up scene. In new writing, commissioned pilots will feature Richard Wilson in Fare Trade, playing a suburban taxi driver with too much time on his hands, and Ricky Tomlinson.

Challenge: Arts programming needs to be strengthened. The station will identify opportunities in the daytime output to enhance coverage of popular culture. In addition, documentaries will be commissioned that extend total provision under four headings.

• Musical theatre, including series on the histories of both musicals and cabaret.
• Cultural landmarks, including a celebration of 100 years of the London Palladium and reflecting upon the 50th anniversary of the novel To Kill A Mockingbird.
• Creative biographies, including exploring the unexpected influence on British pop music of the writer Roald Dahl.
• Broadcasting, including Paul Gambaccini's history of radio, Michael Grade's history of television, and a biography of Sir David Frost that will reflect the emergence of TV satire.

Other programming highlights

Live music

• We will offer live music capturing unique performances, repertoire and collaborations. Our activity will include coverage of the Electric Proms, newly identified with Radio 2, in order to provide new creative input into this already successful season, closely attuned to our audience's tastes, and secure television coverage to increase the overall impact of the event.

Music documentaries

We will continue to offer programmes which offer new insights into the history of popular music. These will include the following:

• A major 10-part landmark series, Jazz Junctions, exploring the development of jazz through the stories of the characters who helped shape the form over 100 years.
• Stephen Tompkinson will present a series on the lasting influence of British military music that traces the global spread of brass ensembles from the deserts of Rajasthan to the carnivals of Trinidad.
• How Ella Met Marilyn is the unlikely story of Marilyn Monroe's significant role in breaking the colour bar in her campaign of support for Ella Fitzgerald, a study of two icons in opposition to the strictures of their times.
• Keep Calm And Carry On: Vera Lynn, I Told You We'd Meet, a biography of the enduring star.

Religion and faith

We aim to build upon the strength of long-established formats and offer challenging new perspectives:

• We will celebrate the 70th anniversary of Sunday Half Hour through an extended programme.
• 2010 also marks the 25th anniversary of Radio 2's Young Choristers Of The Year, to be reflected in special programming.
• In A Great British Faith, three very different UK cities will be looked at to give an insight into the questions raised by the religious and cultural make-up of Britain, stimulating a national conversation about who we are as a nation.

Cultural context

We will explore the enduring impact of the 1960s with a season that investigates the enduring legacy in both the UK and the USA.

• Actor Kevin Kline will narrate JFK: Pop President, a documentary that places Kennedy in a cultural, not just a political, context.
• The legendary publicist and designer Tony King will take listeners on a personal journey through the 1960s in Eyewitness To History.
• In The British Invasion, Alice Cooper looks at the British musical invasion of the United States – uniquely, from an American perspective.

Insight into global events

During the World Cup season, Radio 2 will reflect the political and musical landscape of South Africa.

• I Ain't Gonna Play Sun City documents the role of music in bringing the issue of apartheid to greater public attention.
• Paul Simon will offer a personal perspective in his Musical Map Of Johannesburg.
• The landmark series Freedom Sounds 2010 will be reversioned and rebroadcast, with Hugh Masekela tracing the history of South African music and the role of the arts in fostering change to bring democracy to the country.

Conditions: BBC purposes and Radio 2 commitments

The commitments stated below are subject to change as a result of the current review of performance against public purposes conducted by the BBC Trust.

Unless otherwise stated, all commitments are minimum hours or percentages and include originations, repeats and acquisitions. All conditions are annual unless otherwise stated.

Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence

• 40% of music in daytime from UK acts. (Daytime is defined as 06.00-19.00 hours Monday-Friday and 08.00-14.00 hours Saturday-Sunday.)
• 20% of music in daytime to be new (either unreleased or less than one month since release – physical release, not download release).
• 260 hours of live music.
• >1,100 hours of specialist music programmes.
• >100 hours of arts programming.
• Contribute to BBC Radio's commitment to commission at least 10% of eligible hours of output from independent producers.

Sustaining citizenship and civil society

• 16 hours a week of news and current affairs programming, including regular news bulletins (with flexibility for holiday periods and occasional special schedule changes).

Representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities

• 170 hours of religious output covering a broad range of faiths.

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