The remit of Radio 3 is to offer a mix of music and cultural programming in order to engage and entertain its audience. Around its core proposition of classical music, its speech-based programming should inform and educate the audience about music and culture. Jazz, world music, drama, the arts and ideas, and religious programming should feature in its output.

The service should appeal to listeners of any age seeking to expand their cultural horizons through engagement with the world of music and the arts.

Radio 3 will continue to contribute towards the delivery of the BBC's public purposes in the range of ways set out in its service licence. Key developments in the way in which the service will contribute to each purpose are outlined below. These are designed to address the priorities identified by the BBC Trust, future-proof the delivery of the purposes, and address perceived gaps in delivery in line with strategies in the BBC's purpose plans.

1 Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence

• Priority: Radio 3 will, from the start of 2009, mark the year as an important one for classical music in Britain, building on the major anniversaries of Purcell, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn, all of whom have British associations.
• Priority: We will continue to stimulate interest in British culture through marking the anniversaries of Vaughan Williams and John Milton in 2008.
• There will be greater coordination between Radio 3 and Proms programming, including the development of richer contextual content through Proms Plus, a series of related talks with both public and broadcast elements.
• We will continue to recognise creativity by increasing the profile of the Radio 3 Awards for World Music and the Radio 3 Choir of the Year, as well as maintaining our involvement with the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards and the British Composer Awards.

2 Promoting education and learning

• We will give context to our music output, both in our presentation and in supporting content for our website. We will continue to support new and emerging artists through the New Generation Artists scheme.
• We will develop our emphasis on recommendation through our interactive service, providing the audience with signposts to developing an appreciation of a wide range of music. Our Choir of the Year award for amateur singers, with its strong emphasis on youth choirs, represents an aspiration for choirs across the UK.

3 Representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities

• In addition to regular concerts and extensive festival coverage from Edinburgh, York, Bath, Aldeburgh and elsewhere, we will highlight the achievements of amateur orchestras in Play to the Nation, bringing their achievement to a wider audience throughout October.

4 Bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK

• Priority: Radio 3 remains committed to offering international perspectives within our speech programmes, particularly Night Waves, and in our contributions to the pan-BBC China season.
• We will present Radio 3 listeners with music and the arts extending beyond national boundaries. We will continue to develop our relationships with international broadcasters to strengthen coverage of musical life from outside the UK. In addition, we will seek to deepen partnerships with venues and ensembles to ensure the most engaging broadcasts from across the world.

5 Sustaining citizenship and civil society

• Priority: To give Radio 3 ideas output a public face, we will organise the third edition of Free Thinking, a weekend of speech events confronting the major issues of our time. This will involve the public both through the Liverpool-based festival and through offering a high degree of interactivity. It will have several themes, including one being planned entitled Human Futures.
• Radio 3 will address contemporary issues in programmes such as Night Waves and Music Matters, debating issues from a cultural perspective, offering a variety of opinions, and encouraging listeners to come to their own conclusions.

6 Delivering the benefit of emerging communications technologies

• We will develop our podcast service and visualisation of Radio 3 content online.

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

• 50% live or specially recorded music
• 500 broadcasts of live or specially recorded performances
• 30 new musical works commissioned (excluding repeats and acquisitions)
• 35 new drama productions broadcast (excluding repeats and acquisitions)
• Contribute to BBC Radio's commitment to commission at least 10% of eligible hours of output from independent producers

Promoting education and learning

• 30 new documentaries broadcast on arts and cultural topics (excluding repeats and acquisitions)

Representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities

• 40% of relevant spend incurred outside the M25
  (This includes expenditure on first-run originated programming and Radio 3's allocation of the central orchestras' subsidy, but does not include expenditure on news or sport output.)