Director General of the BBC, Tony Hall, has announced that the corporation is to make its greatest commitment to arts coverage for a generation.
Brand new programmes and extensive online resources will expand the range of content dedicated to the arts.
A new strand, BBC Arts at… will immerse viewers in live arts and music events across the country, including Glyndebourne, the Hay Festival and Shakespeare’s Globe.
BBC iPlayer is to place all arts programmes into a single category and The Space, an online collaboration with Arts Council England to engage with brand new art, will relaunch this the summer. There are also plans to make the BBC archive available digitally.
Various leaders in the arts have been appointed to oversee the new projects, including artistic director of Manchester International Festival Alex Poots and director of the Tate Sir Nicholas Serota.
Speaking yesterday, Hall said: ‘We’re the biggest arts broadcaster anywhere in the world – but our ambition is to be even better. I want BBC Arts – and BBC Music – to sit proudly alongside BBC News.’
Upcoming programme highlights include BBC Radio 4’s three-part series Playing the Skyline, in which musicians convert the shape of outstanding landscapes to notes on a stave, and The Orchestras on BBC Three, which will follow the lives of working musicians.