Sustaining citizenship and civil society
BBC Asian Network offers current, accurate and impartial news and current affairs, providing up-to-date coverage of events around the UK and the world as they happen, in a style that makes the output accessible to its target audience.

The majority of the Asian Network’s programmes are live and mix speech with music in a highly flexible format. This means the station can offer instant access to breaking news and information relevant to British Asians. The commitment to speech throughout the schedule also means that news stories are not confined to bulletins, but are given time to be developed, analysed and put in context via current affairs output.

Specifically this year:

• A regular documentary strand will be introduced to bring original stories to air and allow for in-depth investigation and explanation.

Building digital Britain
As a national digital radio station, the Asian Network aims to play an important role in increasing radio listening via digital platforms, particularly amongst a younger British Asian audience. It informs listeners on the network’s AM analogue frequencies in the Midlands about the superior reception offered on digital platforms and gets involved in BBC campaigns to promote DAB digital radio take-up.

On-air output is complemented by comprehensive interactive content on bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork, including the use of video and other visual elements. The Asian Network also provides internet listeners with limited post-broadcast on-demand access to its programming.

This year we will:

• Offer content to our young, technologically aware listeners in new ways, including blogs and enhanced interactivity.

Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence
In music, the Asian Network plays a leading role in supporting creativity, and acting as a showcase for new and British Asian artists across a wide range of genres. It seeks to expose the best new British Asian music to the widest possible audience, nurturing and developing new acts, whilst encouraging listeners to challenge and broaden their tastes.

Drama is an important part of the Asian Network’s mixed-genre schedule. The station commissions radio drama which is relevant to its target audience, encouraging new writing, directing and performing talent.

In its speech output, the Asian Network covers a wide range of artistic and cultural issues relating to British Asians, such as food, fashion, sport and film.

This year:

• Live music will have a regular new home at the heart of the schedule. The new afternoon and weekend shows will showcase the biggest names in Asian music, alongside experimental and challenging new acts.
• We will feature unique collaborations, international artists, British bands, workshops for aspiring British Asian artists and recorded concerts within our music offering.
• The daily soap Silver Street will commission well-known writers such as Meera Syal and Tanika Gupta to direct one-off, self-contained episodes. This initiative will then be expanded by holding a competition to find new writing talent amongst Asian Network listeners.

Bringing the world to the UK and the UK to the world
While our principal focus is on the lives of UK Asians, an important strand of our journalism will be reporting on the South Asian and Asian diaspora.

Through the availability of the network online around the world, we provide a global stage for British Asian culture and achievements.

This year:

• We will sharpen the focus on new and unsigned British Asian artists, enabling listeners across the globe to experience the very best in British Asian culture.
• Our new daily news programme will feature a regular world news update.

Promoting education and learning
The Asian Network aims to be as accessible as possible in its speech output, working to make complicated subjects easy to understand. This is particularly true of the station’s documentary output.

The Asian Network often blends different genres including music, news, sport, business, politics, entertainment, drama and conversation within one programme, exposing listeners to a broad range of subject matter that they may not otherwise come across.

The Asian Network’s language programming is aimed at listeners who probably speak English as their first language, and so helps connect British Asians with their linguistic roots and invites them to engage with South Asian languages in an interesting, interactive way.

This year:

• We aim to make Asian language output relevant and attractive to young British Asians.

Last year, BBC Asian Network reviewed most programme formats and changes were introduced to some programmes, with further changes planned for 2006/2007. Improvements were seen in the range and quality of our output, in particular in our news and current affairs coverage, with significant coverage of the July bombings in London, the Pakistan earthquake and the Birmingham riots.

In music, the Asian Network Live concert from Symphony Hall in Birmingham underlined our commitment to the British Asian music scene and to uncovering new talent.

In 2006/2007 we will concentrate on:

• Strengthening the overall quality and consistency of our output across the schedule, and improving the network’s editorial ambition through:
  
  – Introducing a new regular documentary strand.
  
  – Enhancing our relationship with BBC News.
  
  – Introducing new programmes in the schedule, such as a lunchtime news update show covering a broad news agenda, as well as music and entertainment news, business and sport.
  
  – Increasing the level of live music.

None.