V1 last updated by LL 19.02.21 BBC Radio Commissioning Brief_v1.1_2021 01 19 CONTENTS SECTION A: RADIO 4 and DRAMA .................................................................................................. 3 SECTION B: COMMISSIONING OPPORTUNITIES .................................................................. 8 SECTION C: COMMISSIONING TIMETABLE ........................................................................... 15 SECTION D: COMMISSIONING PROCESS ............................................................................... 16 STAGE 1: SHORT PROPOSAL .................................................................................................. 16 STAGE 2: FULL PROPOSAL ...................................................................................................... 17 STAGE 3: CONDITIONAL COMMISSION AWARDED .......................................................... 20 2 of 21 BBC Radio Commissioning Brief_v1.1_2021 01 19 SECTION A: RADIO 4 and DRAMA Introduction Mohit Bakaya, Controller Another year, another commissioning round. Except, of course, it is not really like any other year. We go into this round in the midst of a global pandemic that has caused 100,000 deaths, dramatically altered our everyday lives and is forcing us to question many of our assumptions about the modern world and the way our society should work. Hopefully, by the time the ideas you pitch to us land in the schedule, we will be beyond the earth-shaking intensity of the virus but we will still be feeling the aftershocks. Then there is the very different, but some might argue equally disruptive (in relation to our democracy at least), impact of social media. It’s a forum that can, when all the voices are put together, sound like an angry, attention-seeking child, dishing out truths and falsehoods in equal measure, without any guide to indicate clearly which is which. This infant has upended our democratic debate and poisoned the well of truth. It enables parallel communities to thrive where evidence matters less than feeling, where belonging to a tribe of true believers is more important than engaging constructively with naysayers. And then there is climate change. The biggest challenge of our time. It is into this uncertain landscape that your programmes will be broadcast, and it is this environment you should be mindful of when thinking up your ideas. The first and most important thing we will have to get to grips with is, of course, what this seismic shock has done to us all. People have lost loved ones, livelihoods, friendships, routines, their sense of how the world works. They will still be dealing with the challenges brought on by months of lockdown, as well as illness and bereavement. Our collective mental health has been under severe strain. The generations have simultaneously been placed at odds with each other and brought closer together. Think hard about the communities and groups most affected by Covid: the elderly, the poor, those wrestling with long term health conditions. In these groups no life has remained untouched. We are a nation changed. How do we capture that in a clever, original way? Crucially, how will your ideas complement what Radio 4 will be doing through its live and regular output next year? After a year when we have all gone through a collective trauma, finding different ways to explore the aftermath is going to be a challenge. An equally big challenge is how can we take the audience beyond the misery of the pandemic? After over a year of unrelenting grimness, they will need a break. 3 of 21 BBC Radio Commissioning Brief_v1.1_2021 01 19 What are the dramas, comedies, documentaries and podcasts the audience will need in 2022/23? How can we bring the audience together more, so their understanding of the plight of others improves and the unequal impact of Covid is properly felt? Where, as a result of staring so intensely at one story, has our collective gaze not fallen? How can we delight, engage and transport our audience after such a gruelling year? What is brewing out there that we might be able to smell but not yet hear or see? What are the dots that need joining up for the audience to identify the major trends waiting just around the corner? These are some of the questions I’d love you to explore. Also, this far out from when programmes will land, what big statements can we make? Can we set the agenda on the issues that will matter most to the audience but aren’t yet apparent? Are there issues that are best explored through comedy or drama? Is there a big literary work that gets underneath our culture today, maybe one from the last 50 years? Through all of this there are two things that will continue to matter for our audience: truth and wonder. We have a commitment to truth. It runs through all our programmes and podcasts. I’m talking about the truth implicit in a brilliant piece of political satire, a line of poetry or the plight of a character in the afternoon drama, as much as the truth revealed by an investigative documentary, exploratory interview or brilliant storytelling podcast. This commitment is more important now than at any time in Radio 4’s fifty year history. I believe we have an absolutely vital role to play in supporting and developing civic well-being and critical thinking. Like social media, Radio 4 is a space where people come together - but to what end? I think we have a role in providing a nuanced, impartial, more evidence based conversation; supplying more light, less heat. More provoking of thought, less stirring up of rage, or (and this is as bad) complacent reaffirmation of strongly held views. We can think through to truth in a civil way. Our democracy relies on evidence based knowledge, on context and history, on clear analysis and calling out untruths. It requires us to understand the lives, experiences and beliefs of people different to us and to voice our differences through informed, respectful debate. If people are to make informed decisions at the ballot box and be engaged citizens, Radio 4 has an enabling role to play. That is not just with our existing audience but also those who don’t yet listen to our stuff but could and would … as long as it arrives in a form that works for them. So we need to keep thinking about ways to reach beyond our base, find people where they are with our content so that they, too, have access to all the brilliant thinking and enquiry that we have built our reputation on. 4 of 21 BBC Radio Commissioning Brief_v1.1_2021 01 19 I want Radio 4 to up its intellectual ambition. And I want us to broaden the range of people we hear from, so that we feel relevant in every corner of these islands. We also have a commitment to wonder. People need intelligent delight. They want to be transported at a time when travel is hard. They want to feel close to the lives and experiences of others, whilst possibly still having to observe a physical distance. Things will ease over time but we will not be left unaffected. Radio can help with the post-Covid world. We can bring people closer and supply the joy, laughter and escape that have been so scarce in recent months. I also want us to keep exploring new treatments for our classic genres: arts, drama, comedy, factual. We need to focus more on HOW we tell our stories, how we play with the form to surprise and delight, so we can reach a new audience in BBC Sounds and in the schedule. We’d like you to think about nifty new ways to reach an audience not brought up on speech radio, so that Radio 4 can build on its unparalleled success in Sounds. The mashing up of genres – entertainment with knowledge, drama with documentary – might be worth considering. How can truth and wonder come together to take us to new destinations? You are our spies in the world. It is your knowledge, experience, contacts and insights that will help us get into the stories that will create compelling audio for our audience – existing and potential. That means we need our supplier base to better reflect and represent the nation we broadcast to, both in terms of make-up and of the questions it asks and the territory it explores. We must not make lazy assumptions about who the audience is and what matters most to them. We cannot focus only on the issues, preoccupations and lives of some communities, at the expense of others. We must represent the whole country. So we will up our commitment to diversity, in every sense of the word: class, race, religion, gender, disability, region, political perspective. And we will buy programmes from suppliers across the whole UK in the hope that this broadens the scope of the lives we reflect and the stories we tell. We want ideas that tell us important truths about the world around us, ideas that are clever in conceit so that they can engage new audiences, ideas that create awe and wonder, ideas that reflect the actual country we live in, not just the one we see in the mirror. Finally, I know this has been a gruelling year. You have all done amazingly. You have made programmes, in incredibly challenging circumstances, to provide the audience with essential companionship as well keep them informed and entertained. And the audience feedback has been extraordinary. On their behalf, thank you. I understand that working up new ideas for a commissioning round may feel like the last thing you want to do right now, especially as we had to postpone parts of the last round to take pressure off suppliers in the first lockdown and have only recently issued some results. However, the commissioning round is an important creative moment in the Radio 4 calendar. It allows all suppliers to stand together on a level 5 of 21 BBC Radio Commissioning Brief_v1.1_2021 01 19 playing field, as we fire the starting gun, setting off a contest which culminates in brilliant dramas, comedies, podcasts and documentaries delighting millions of people.