BBC 7 provides speech-based entertainment. Its schedule includes comedy, drama, stories, features, unabridged (8) readings and programmes for children. Most output comes from the BBC archive, but the station commissions some original content, particularly of types of output rarely found on BBC radio. The station is the home of children's speech radio from the BBC.

BBC 7 provides a distinctive service compared with other UK speech radio stations. Programmes are aimed at both adults and children, based around a zoned schedule so that each audience knows when to expect output designed for them.

Classic and contemporary archive material includes comedy, drama, readings and features, giving older listeners a chance to hear their favourite programmes again while introducing the material and packaging it in such a way as to appeal to a younger audience.

Children's programming is an integral part of the schedule. Our provision, including newly commissioned content, covers a range of genres and programme types, including some drama and readings as well as feature programmes.

For the year ahead, key priorities for BBC 7 include:

Priority	Rationale
Attract new audiences by using the sound archive creatively and commissioning new comedy, drama and readings such as The Further Adventures of Dr Syn and Ashenden - Gentleman Spy .	Providing an entertaining mix of quality programmes to further build the station's reach.
Provide new children's programming and introduce the CBeebies brand.	Following on from the launch of the new children's schedule in March 2007, BBC 7 aims to consolidate its position as the BBC's lead provider of children's radio and to encourage little learners and their parents to tune in and discover new programmes.
Offer our audience additional and innovative ways to listen to and interact with the output, both on air and online.	Short-form interactive drama, for example, will exploit the varied platforms through which BBC 7 listeners access the network.

Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence
BBC 7 aims to keep alive the best of the BBC's audio archive, part of the BBC's contribution to the UK's cultural heritage. The service aims to attract listeners to this programming through its tone and the structure of its schedule. This year we will be celebrating the centenary of Daphne du Maurier's birth with a season of her adapted novels, and also the centenary of Robert A Heinlein, one of the great masters of science fiction. We will be inviting a range of well-known writers to talk about their radio drama work, illustrated by archive examples. We will also be launching an American season which will include archive American drama and comedy from writers such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Arthur Miller.

BBC 7 will also continue to support writers new to radio through original commissions encouraging writers to develop original drama in genres not often catered for on other networks. We nurture new talent through original commissions and use established talent to present and set in context archive material. New drama commissions for this year include Slipstream by Simon Bovey, Never the Bride by Paul Magrs, Rush by Annie McCartney and, by popular demand, second series of Undone, Space Hacks and The Spaceship . New comedy includes Spats, written by BBC 7 New Comedy Award finalist Luke Roberts, No Tomatoes by Ian Potter, and a further series of Serious About Comedy reviewing forthcoming events and acts in the world of comedy.

This year we will be further developing Chain Gang, as an interactive listener-written story in which the listeners contribute to the plot by sending in two-minute instalments via email.

In 2007/2008 BBC 7 will:

• Broadcast at least 2,800 hours of comedy (including repeats and acquisitions).
• Broadcast at least 2,800 hours of drama (including repeats and acquisitions).
• Commission and broadcast at least 10 hours of original new comedy.
• Commission and broadcast at least 20 hours of original new drama.
• Contribute to BBC Radio's commitment to commission at least 10% of eligible hours of output from independent producers.

Promoting education and learning
BBC 7 is the BBC's home for children's speech radio, and in 2007 will extend the established CBeebies TV and online pre-school brand to radio for the first time. CBeebies will become a genuine multimedia offer, with video and audio output and a dedicated online space for our younger listeners.

We will offer a three-hour magazine show for the CBeebies audience seven days a week, built around a block of mixed speech, music, features, presentation and stories. We will provide nursery rhymes, favourite songs and newly commissioned adaptations of popular children's storybooks, plus some archive material. We will encourage our listeners to join in wherever they are - whether at home or in the nursery - and sing along, shout out answers, follow simple recipes, or guess the mystery object or animal, for example. In addition, young children's voices will be heard in a variety of output, including a short feature titled Out of My Window in which pre-school children will talk about their environment.

For older children, Big Toe Books is a daily one-hour breakfast slot that offers longer readings, with titles this year to include Oliver Twist, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and The Chronicles of Narnia.

For older and adult listeners, BBC 7 gives context to its archive output, to better support an understanding of the UK's cultural heritage of entertainment speech radio. In September, to mark 40 years of Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4, we will be broadcasting a season of comedy from the early days of Radio 2, and a selection of 1967 drama from Radio 4. These will be introduced by contemporary presenters to give the audience a background to the material.

This year we will:

• Broadcast at least 1,400 hours of children's programming (including repeats).

Representing the UK's nations, regions and communities
We will continue a nationwide search for the best new comedy writers and performers. Building on the BBC 7 New Comedy Awards from the past two years, we have invited aspiring comedy talent from all parts of the UK to send in examples of performances of their own work, in a project entitled Witty and Twisted. To develop this new talent, BBC 7 will be showcasing 10 of the performances in a series of 15-minute programmes, after which listeners will be given an interactive opportunity to vote for the performance they feel has the most potential. The winning writer/performer will receive a commission for a four-part comedy series.

Once more we will give network coverage to some of the best BBC local and regional programming, such as The Fred MacAulay Show from Radio Scotland, plus a selection of local radio award-winning features and drama.

Emerging communications
BBC 7 is a digital radio station. It is available on DAB and via digital television, and is streamed on the internet. Some programmes are available for download after broadcast, extending the life of the programmes by making them accessible to listeners for whom a linear schedule is not convenient.

Reach: BBC 7 should contribute towards the maintenance of combined BBC weekly reach for all BBC services at over 90% by aiming to increase its own weekly reach.

Quality: Audience approval of BBC 7 and perceptions of it as high quality and innovative. Also, the proportion of originated programmes across all hours (including repeats).

Impact: Licence fee payer awareness of BBC 7 and audience perceptions of
BBC 7 as engaging and challenging.

Value for money: BBC 7's cost per listener hour.