BBC Radio 4’s flagship arts programme Front Row to launch a new edition as Saturday Review comes to an end
From September 2017, BBC Radio 4’s flagship arts and culture programme Front Row will launch a new Saturday edition as the show is extended to six days a week with an increased digital presence, allowing audiences to experience Front Row and the artists and arts it features in new ways.
Published: 10 April 2017
Intelligent arts review remains an important part of Radio 4’s wide-ranging culture content with Front Row becoming its new home, building on its existing coverage.
* Update on this announcement here *
The programme’s review coverage will also be enhanced as it picks up the baton from Saturday Review, which will come to an end in the autumn.
As it approaches its 20th anniversary, Front Row remains at the forefront of arts journalism with 2.2 million weekly on air listeners and has charted the changing landscape of the arts since its launch in 1998. For six days a week Front Row will continue to bring to listeners a rich mix of interviews, news, features and performances, as well as arts and culture reviews and occasional new commissions.
The new Saturday Front Row will be an expertly presented, one-stop digest of the best Front Row content of the week. As well as bringing together highlights from the previous week and looking ahead to the next, the Saturday show will also cover reaction to the stories and moments which surprised and intrigued the arts world and Front Row’s audience.
The team behind the show will develop plans to increase Front Row’s digital presence, bringing audiences closer to the artists and performances it features. Front Row will offer additional content online, including videos, revealing more about what happens in the studio and behind the scenes to current and new audiences across platforms.
The final broadcast date of Saturday Review will be confirmed in due course. In addition to Saturday Review, Tom Sutcliffe is often heard on Start the Week and his Round Britain Quiz returns to Radio 4 in November.
Gwyneth Williams, Controller Radio 4 and 4 Extra says: “Saturday Review will be missed but we have to make difficult decisions on how we can best safeguard the overall range and breadth of content on Radio 4 whilst delivering savings. I’d like to thank the excellent Tom Sutcliffe for his time presenting the show since its launch with such insight and commitment.”
“Intelligent arts review remains an important part of Radio 4’s wide-ranging culture content with Front Row becoming its new home, building on its existing coverage. We also plan a step change in Front Row’s digital presence as we hope to make its authoritative and original content easily and more widely available to both new and existing audiences.”
Alice Feinstein, Editor of Front Row, says: “The cultural landscape in the UK and around the world has changed significantly since the launch of Front Row nearly twenty years ago, and so has our audiences’ consumption of arts. The new Front Row at six nights a week aims to reflect these changes and bring our listeners news about the arts that they love and enjoy in a way that is fresh and contemporary.
“Front Row’s purpose has always been to report on the arts and provide a way of looking at the world through them, offering moments of pleasure, insight, enjoyment and excitement. We will continue to feed our listeners’ curiosity by increasing our review coverage, as well as reporting on the arts, both mainstream and at the cutting edge, with intelligence, wit, analysis and opinion.”
Radio 4 arts content is consumed by 4.6m listeners each week and is an eclectic mix of regulars such as Front Row, Open Book, The Film Programme, Poetry Please and Soul Music, and a range of features and special seasons. As part of Radio 4’s aims to open up the airwaves to artists and creative processes, Gwyneth Williams has launched a new long-form arts interview series, Only Artists, in the prominent 9am Wednesday slot. In addition, Radio 4’s Commissioning Editor for Arts, James Runcie recently announced a diverse range of new commissions for the year, including contemporary poetic responses to The Odyssey and a series of features following six artists across the UK over the course of a year to capture the immediacy and excitement of making art.
The BBC has an ongoing commitment to Arts programming - ‘the greatest commitment to arts for a generation’ - as announced by the Director General in 2014. The BBC aims to provide the broadest range and depth of music and arts programmes across television, radio and online. The BBC creates non-commercial partnerships with the arts sector that go beyond broadcast, from sharing expertise, to encouraging cross collaboration and creation in order to widen public engagement in UK arts. The BBC aims to provide context through original, fresh discussion and perspectives and is the biggest investor and creator of original arts and music programming.
In 2017 Tony Hall, BBC Director General, announced Culture UK, a new approach to collaboration, commissioning and creativity in partnership with Arts Council England, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Arts Council of Wales, the British Council and Creative Scotland. The initiative will develop UK-wide cultural festivals that can reach new audiences, support artist-led commissioning in broadcast and digital media and will convene an R&D programme that will focus on new experiences in performance, live events and exhibitions.
LZ
