BBC 7

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BBC 7

Broadcast area	UK - National
Frequency	DAB: 12B Freeview: 708 BSkyB: 0131 Virgin Media: 910 UPC Ireland: 929 Live Stream Real/WM
First air date	15 December 2002
Format	Comedy, Drama, and Children's programming
Audience share	0.4% (September 2007, [1])
Owner	BBC
Website	www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7

BBC 7 is a digital radio station broadcasting comedy, drama, and children's programming 24 hours a day. It is the principal broadcasting outlet for the BBC's vast archive of spoken-word entertainment, and was established specifically to enable the contents of the BBC Sound Archives to be broadcast.

Programmes qualify for broadcast on BBC 7 if they are either three years old or more, or if they have previously been broadcast twice on their original station. However, even if a programme fulfils these criteria, there may be copyright issues preventing it from appearing on BBC 7.

The schedule spans the decades, from 1950s classics like the Goon Show to recent Radio 4 shows such as Little Britain.

The station aims for a less formal approach than other speech networks. The announcers who link the programmes are promoted as personalities in their own right and are associated with themed blocks of programming. This was taken one step further on 14th February 2005, when an hour long strand of comedy was introduced between 8am and 9am, presented by Richard Bacon.

There is speculative fiction of various kinds, science fiction, fantasy or horror seven days a week in a regular slot called The 7th Dimension which is broadcast on BBC 7 twice a day, at 6pm and midnight (UK time). In early 2007, this slot featured a series of original Doctor Who audio dramas, starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor.

Paul Merton launched the station at 8pm on 15 December 2002 in a simulcast with Radio 4. It was originally codenamed Network Z.

The station's licence requires it to carry children's programming, which, until 2007, came in the form of two daily shows: The Little Toe Radio Show which was aimed at younger children and consisted of short serials, stories and rhymes that ran from 7am - 8am and was repeated at 3pm - 4pm. Big names like Roger McGough were regular contributors; and The Big Toe Radio Show which aired from 4pm - 6pm and consisted of phone-ins, quizzes as well as stories intended for the 8+ age group. In February 2007 the schedule changed and Big Toe Books took over the 7am slot, but dropped the phone-ins and quizzes for children aged 8 and up while Cbeebies Radio replaced The Little Toe Show and now runs in a longer slot from 2pm - 5pm. These programmes almost entirely contain original material.

BBC 7 does broadcast some original programming. Spanking New on Seven is a stand-up comedy programme, and they annually broadcast the BBC New Comedy Competition, a competition for new stand up comedians. The Mitch Benn Music Show features comedy songs introduced by Mitch Benn. Colin and Fergus’ Digi Radio is a comedy sketch show on its second series as of 2006. Serious About Comedy is a weekly show presented by Robin Ince where comedians and comedy critics discuss comedy television, radio, DVDs, and films from the last week.

The flagship comedy section on BBC 7 is The Comedy Club, hosted by Alex Riley (Monday to Friday) and Penny Haslem (Sunday) . Pitched as "two hours of contemporary comedy", it is broadcast from 10pm to midnight Sunday to Friday

Comedy that has previously been commercially available as cassettes on the Laughing Stock label is also broadcast.

Two American series, Garrison Keillor's Radio Show and The Twilight Zone are also recent examples of BBC 7 output.

BBC 7 won the Sony Radio Academy Award for Station Sound in 2003, was nominated for the Promo Award in 2004, and in 2005 received a Silver for the Short-Form award, plus nominations in the Speech Award and Digital Terrestrial Station Of The Year Award.

The station can be heard worldwide on the Internet, across northern Europe via the Astra 2A satellite, and in the UK on DAB digital radio, cable television, and Freeview digital terrestrial television.