BBC News 24 delivers up-to-the-minute, accurate, impartial and independent news, analysis and insight. It provides fast and comprehensive coverage of local, UK and international events as they unfold and specialist analysis to put the news in context.

BBC News 24 draws on the BBC's newsgathering operations across the UK and around the world to provide accessible and accurate comprehensive news coverage and context. It offers a complete news service each hour, including sport, business and weather updates from across the UK. BBC News 24 aims to deliver breaking news first and, wherever possible, immediately, but not to the detriment of accuracy. It offers strong coverage of the UK, from across the UK and from the rest of the world.

For the year ahead, key priorities for BBC News 24 are:

Priority	Rationale
Put BBC News 24 at the heart of the BBC's online proposition and enhance audience interactivity via texts and emails.	BBC News 24 continually seeks to deepen its relationship with its audience, making itself accessible to them, and harnessing their own experiences and opinions supports this.
Deploy presenters on major news stories and significant planned theme days, taking them out of the studio and into communities where news is happening.	To deliver increased impact and first-hand reporting of major events and issues of significance to our viewers.
Build reach, especially among the younger and C2DE audiences, through enhanced entertainment news on the channel.	BBC News 24 aims to build audiences among groups we currently underserve, including the under 34s and C2DEs.
Produce more low cost documentaries on key news stories and themes.	Using existing resource to make more content on the back of big news stories and so deliver improved value for money.

Sustaining citizenship and civil society
BBC News 24 aims to provide accurate, impartial and independent news and analysis, exploring multiple viewpoints and giving voice to a wide range of opinions in order to serve all audiences. Our diverse agenda goes beyond the headlines to bring important stories to air, explaining these clearly by using specialist analysis and graphics to enhance viewers' understanding and enable them to make up their own minds.

Parliamentary reporting will continue to cover significant debates and parliamentary occasions from Westminster and the devolved parliament and assemblies, which is particularly significant for audiences in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and we will continue to explain European institutions and their work. This year will be an exciting one in UK politics - BBC News 24 will offer explanation and analysis, and the opportunity for debate, as the two main political parties transform themselves under new leaders in post-Blair Britain.

To promote national debate, we will encourage viewers to interact with the channel, to comment on issues and to put their questions to experts and those in authority.

Specifically we will:

• Broadcast a comprehensive news service each hour, including sport and weather updates, plus a news summary on the half-hour.
• Broadcast hourly business news from 9am to 7pm on weekdays.

Bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK
BBC News 24 aims to offer a more international news agenda than the other main continuous news channel(s) in the UK, and so features major international stories, drawing upon the expertise of BBC correspondents based in newsgathering bureaux across the world to provide insight and analysis. In addition, rolling news is regularly co-presented from the scenes of major breaking stories around the world.

Where appropriate, BBC News 24 will include a range of international voices across the output, including in-depth interviews with international politicians and significant public figures.

This year we will:

• Feature more international news coverage than the other main continuous news channel(s) in the UK, including comprehensive coverage of the build-up to the 2008 US and French presidential elections.

Representing the UK's nations, regions and communities
BBC News 24 offers strong regional coverage, calling on a network of correspondents across the UK and trying to feature a regional perspective from beyond London in all relevant major stories in order to highlight different impacts in different parts of the country. We seek opinion and comment from a range of sources throughout the UK - business people, academics and pressure groups as well as the public - and give opportunities to viewers to pose their questions to the channel's guests.

Local, regional and national politics feature across the schedule, including proceedings of the devolved parliament and assemblies, and this year will include comprehensive coverage of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections as well as local elections in England. This year we will:

• Feature more local and regional news coverage than the other main continuous news channel(s) in the UK, in part through giving regional perspectives to national stories.
• Report sports news throughout the day, rounding up the day's main sports stories every evening, delivering 100 hours of sports news across the year.

Emerging communications
BBC News 24 is available on all digital television platforms, and in the event of significant breaking news will continue to be streamed live on the BBC News website. We augment our news coverage with video, still images and messages submitted by viewers, where appropriate, in order to offer first-hand accounts and a wide range of views. We aim to make it as simple as possible for audiences to make these contributions and create one seamless proposition across all platforms.

Promoting education and learning
BBC News 24 delivers informal learning to viewers via the provision of trusted news and information on a range of topics, such as business and economics, science and technology, arts and culture.

Reach: BBC News 24 should contribute towards the maintenance of combined BBC weekly reach for all BBC services at over 90% by aiming to maintain its own weekly reach.

Quality: Audience approval of BBC News 24 and perceptions of it as high quality and innovative.

Impact: Licence fee payer awareness of BBC News 24 and audience perceptions of BBC News 24 as informative, engaging and challenging.

Value for money: BBC News 24's cost per viewer hour.

The following targets are agreed with Ofcom each calendar year:

• 90% of hours to be originations (original productions include all BBC-commissioned programming, including originations and all repeats of programming first shown on any BBC public service channel).
• In conjunction with other BBC network television services, to spend at least 30% of relevant programme (9) production budgets, representing 25% hours of productions by volume, outside the M25.