BBC - Commissioning - How We Commission

How We Work

• How We Commission
• Who We Are
• Business Requirements
• The WoCC
• Innovation Fund

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How We Commission

BBC Radio is the home of the nine national radio stations, four Performing Groups, the BBC Proms as well as classical and pop music production across radio, television and online.

5 Live is now part of BBC North and its HQ is in Media City, Salford Quays. However it will continue to work closely with BBC Radio in terms of planning the BBC’s audio offering.

Following a review by the BBC Trust last year, BBC Radio was asked to review its independent supply arrangements, which we are currently doing. In their report, the Trust stressed that a key driver for them was to ensure that listeners got the best ideas and they asked us to look specifically at the following areas:

•  how BBC Radio communicates with radio independents and what information we should share with them
•  for BBC Radio  to examine its commissioning processes to ensure that it becomes more streamlined for independent suppliers and ensures that the best possible ideas are delivered to licence fee payers.
•  for BBC Radio  to introduce a 10% WoCC by April 2012/13 and a formal 10% quota

We will start to see some of these changes being introduced and will provide further details when they become available.

We will also be piloting a new budgeting system which will hopefully reduce the delay between commissioning decisions being made and contracts being issued.

The Pitching Ideas pages will give you more information on how you can pitch ideas to BBC Radio Stations and what you need to do to sign up to the BBC Radio Independant Production Company database.

The What We Want pages describe what each network is looking for, the main station contacts, and when their commissiong rounds open.

In the downloads section of this page, there is a rough schedule of the commissioning rounds for our networks for 2012. (n.b. all dates are aproximations, to hear exact details when they are announced please sign up to the BBC Radio independent Production Company Database).

Once you are commissioned you may want to find out more information about working with the networks and you can find this on the Production and Delivery pages.