Justin Edwards once again takes the helm for series 6, and will be joined each week by some combination of Lewis MacLeod, Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Pippa Evans and Cariad Lloyd.

It is worth noting that the cast is two men and two women. So do remember to reflect that in your sketches.

The deadlines for episode one are as follows:
For sketches, it is 12pm on Monday 20th Feburary 2012.
For one-liners it is 5pm on Tuesday 21st February.

The deadlines are the same time on Mondays and Tuesdays each week, and submissions received after these times will not be read. It is probably worth reiterating here that Newsjack is a TOPICAL show, so if you have a sketch ready to submit on a Wednesday morning, then you’re usually best to hang onto it until the weekend in case developments in the news story necessitate a rewrite.

Of course, the meat of the show is in the stand-alone topical sketches, which can take many different forms. And whilst we would encourage you to take your own slant on the week’s news, there are also regular formatted features, which are a really good way to structure your sketches. If you are sending in three sketches, it may be worthwhile making one of them fit with the ideas below:

1) The Newsjack App: Newsjack has moved into the 21st Century and finally got its own “app”. Well, actually, it’s just the answerphone of a Nokia 3310. Like the Vox Pops of previous series, this is the perfect place to air your one-liners or quick jokes. They can be about any prominent news issue and these messages will then be heard throughout the show. NB. The JackApps work best when they sound like a phone-in, rather than an ice-cream-stick joke. What would someone phone in to say, how do they sound when they say it on the real phone-ins/rant-lines?

2) From the Archive: We delve through the archives to discover how topical events were covered back in the day.

3) Things We’ve Learned This Week: This is your chance to boil down the week’s news into three easy lessons. (Please submit no more than 3 each week).

4) Newsjack Films: Since the British Film Council has gone up the spout, Newsjack has bravely stepped in and started producing topical films. This is your opportunity to write the film trailer for this week’s film…for example, the last series featured the adventures of Geordie superhero, "BatManMan”

5) Corrections: Another good opportunity for short jokes. At the end of the show these ‘corrections’ pretend to address any mistakes we made in last week’s show.

6) "And finally...": A post-credits sequence where we pretend the current episode, in keeping with a lot of Radio 4 Extra's output, is an old show and make jokes about how the world might have changed since the programme went out. Listen to the end of an episode to get a feeling for it.

(There is no guarantee that these sketch ideas will feature every week, but they are a useful way to structure ideas and jokes.)

Please read these very carefully. If you submit your work inappropriately we might not be able to include it in the show.

1. The submission deadline for sketches every week is Monday midday (starting Monday 20th February 2012).

2. Please submit no more than three sketches per week (This means three sketches in total, not several emails cunningly spaced across a few days with three attached to each. We do notice these things, and are far more interested in reading your best work rather than a scattergun approach.)

3. Please send each sketch as a separate .doc or .rtf document ONLY, attached to an email. Title each file with your full name followed by the name of the sketch. e.g. ‘John Brown - Budget report sketch.doc’

4. Please mark each of your sketches on every page with a header that includes:
- Your name
- Your email address
- The title of your sketch
(This is important for making sure you get paid promptly if your work is broadcast.)

5. Submit your sketches – all in one email – to newsjack@bbc.co.uk

The submission deadline for these one-liners is Tuesdays 5pm – we will not look at those any later (unless subsequently requested on the NewsjackBBC Twitter feed). This deadline is later than the sketch deadline to allow you to be more topical.

If you are e-mailing several one-liners, please put them all in one Word document. Don’t attach 12 documents for 12 one-liners.

Title the document with your full name followed by “One-liners” or “Corrections”.
e.g. John Brown – One liners.doc

Submit your One-liners and Corrections to newsjack@bbc.co.uk

TIPS

Don’t feel you have to make all your sketches about the main news story that week or Westminster politics. Look out for the secondary news stories. You might also have a great sketch about “zeitgeisty” topics, cultural observations that don’t necessarily make for “hard news”. If so, we’d love to include these in the show too. They’re all fair game.
Be imaginative. On radio, you can set your sketches anywhere.
Finally, brevity is the soul of wit! Keep your sketches short – if you can do the sketch in one page, then why bother stretching it out to three. And please read through your sketches before you send them off and have one last think about whether you have done all the jokes you can. Is there a twist or reveal which will make your sketch stand out? Is there at least one line which will make an audience laugh out loud? Is there flab that can be cut? Does your sketch have a punchline that rounds off the sketch, or does it just end?

FEES

There is a flat fee for all non-commissioned material (regardless of writer's previous experience). £36 per minute for sketches. £18 per 30 seconds for sketches. £18 for quickies and one liners. This fee will be for taking all rights in the work on a non-exclusive basis.