BBC reinforces its commitment to Arts and Culture with major new commissions across TV and Radio

The BBC’s Director General Tim Davie has reinforced the BBC’s commitment to Arts and Culture with major new commissions, and defined the BBC’s role for the future. He also unveiled newly compiled figures illustrating the popularity, range and distinctiveness of the BBC’s Arts and Culture offer.

New Arts TV programmes unpack contemporary culture, celebrate British creativity and explore landmarks in the global story of art including Renaissance: The Blood and The Beauty, Simon Schama’s History of Us and the return of epic series Civilisations.

BBC Radio 4 delights listeners with its rich arts and culture programming, as well as multi-part series and single documentaries. The station will mark 100 years since the Surrealist manifesto with Russell Tovey, and award-winning author Katherine Rundell focuses on children’s literature in a new series.

Music radio shines a spotlight on new works and talent. Radio 3 commissions 25 composers to write 25 pieces of music reflecting on the first quarter-century of the millennium and brings to audiences a significant 40-part series The Modernists tracing some of the 20th century’s greatest composers. Way With Words returns to Radio 6 Music to celebrate poetry, spoken word, rappers, poets and wordsmiths, and Hype on the Mic on BBC Asian Network showcase performances from new and emerging British Asian talent from all over the UK.

Tim Davie on BBC Arts and Culture

At the event held at the Royal Academy of Arts, showcasing the BBC’s unrivalled Arts & Culture content, Tim Davie said:

“I want to celebrate the richness of our arts offer on the BBC. The wealth of arts and culture content available every day on the BBC, across radio, TV, and online, is unrivalled. As is the BBC’s role as the UK’s cultural partner, and most ambitious creator of original arts programming.

29 million – That’s how many people our TV arts content reached in the last year – or 45% of TV viewers

28,000 hours – 28,000 hours – That’s the amount of arts, classical music, and culture content the BBC produces makes available each year… No one else comes close. And we make more TV arts content than all of the other PSBs and streamers combined*

300 – That’s the number of live performances by the BBC’s orchestras and choirs so far this year – in over 75 different venues across the UK

210 – That’s the number of organisations we partnered with last year, working on arts projects and content

“Sometimes we don’t tell this story strongly enough.

“I want to push back, frankly, on any sense that the BBC’s commitment to arts and culture has diminished. Or the idea we sometimes hear that we don’t care as much as we used to. The arts remain utterly central to the BBC’s mission. We want to send out a strong signal, that arts and culture matter, they matter for everyone, and they matter even more when times are tough.

“We all have our own idea of what great arts and culture on the BBC looks like, and I know everyone is passionate about their own area of the arts. Of course everyone wants us to do more.

“But the BBC’s responsibility is to serve everyone, supporting the full sweep of arts and culture in this country and giving audiences the chance to discover something they love.

“Tonight is all about the collective power of the BBC when we bring it all together, and the impact we can have.

“Our mission will always be to inform, educate, and entertain, but we believe we can do more to respond directly to the most pressing needs of audiences now – to help strengthen our democracy, our creative economy, and our society. That’s why our plan is to focus on three essential roles in the years ahead. We want to pursue truth with no agenda, back the best homegrown storytelling and bring people together.

“We know that nothing can help us achieve the last two like outstanding arts and cultural programming, and that’s why it’s absolutely at the forefront of our vision for the future.”

Tim Davie co-hosted the event with the BBC’s Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore, and a raft of new commissions was announced by Suzy Klein, Head of Arts and Classical Music TV; Mohit Bakaya, Controller of Radio 4 and Director of Speech, and Sam Jackson, Controller of Radio 3 and BBC Proms.

*this was updated on 26/09 from an earlier version that said ‘produced’

BBC Arts and Classical Music TV

A thrilling three-part drama-documentary series, Renaissance: The Blood and the Beauty (w/t), co-commission from PBS and the BBC starring Charles Dance as Michelangelo, examines how some of the greatest works of art in the Western world were born out of an era of violence, power politics and rivalry. Through the interconnected lives of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, as well as their patrons in sixteenth-century Italy, we’ll reveal an unfamiliar side to the Renaissance.

Next year also sees a new iteration of the epic series Civilisations, building on the success of the original and its 2018 reincarnation. This time, with the help of experts and museum curators, we’ll unpack the story of how art and artefacts left behind by great civilisations can explain how powerful societies in the ancient world suddenly collapsed. From war, to dictatorship, to climate change and pandemic, Civilisations: Rise and Fall (w/t) sets out how the forces that brought about the end of civilisations in the ancient world still threaten us today.

Following major series about Shakespeare and Mozart, Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius will mark the 250th anniversary of the author’s birth next year. This new drama-documentary series draws on interviews with writers, actors, and biographers to explore how a young woman from a small village living in eighteenth-century England, became our best-loved novelist, creating characters and stories that have become part of our culture ever since.

A major new cultural history series, The History of Us (w/t) is planned for 2025, which finds Simon Schama looking back at the origins of the culture wars which have dominated the headlines in recent years. He’ll show that fierce arguments over who we are have always been at the centre of British life and have helped fuel our greatest asset, our creativity.

Arena re-launched last year, working with some of the UK’s leading filmmakers and championing the best of British documentary-making and creativity, with films on subjects ranging from Caroline Aherne to Kae Tempest to Coco Chanel, and more. Ahead of the famous strand’s 50th anniversary in 2025, a series of new films have been commissioned exploring a range of subjects, from ballet superstar Steven McRae, broadcaster and musician Clemency Burton-Hill and the opera singer Maria Callas, to the legacy of Loaded magazine and the legendary Roger Moore.

With the acclaimed new documentary strand In My Own Words currently airing on BBC One exploring the lives and careers of some of the UK’s leading cultural figures, such as Billy Connolly, Hanif Kureishi, Jilly Cooper, Jackie Kay and Alison Lapper, a new series has been commissioned for 2025.

There is also a very special single film with Alan Bennett, made to coincide with his 90th birthday.

Following the success of their transformative Italian Grand Tour – with an average reach of 2.7 million viewers across the series, the biggest audience for a BBC Two title on iPlayer so far this year – Rob Rinder and Rylan Clark are back for a new adventure in 2025. This time the duo will explore the art and culture of India. Rob and Rylan’s Passage To India (w/t) will delve into a new realm of art, culture and life-altering experiences inspired by E M Forster’s novel, published 100 years ago.

The BBC has over 210 live partnerships this year (23/24) across the arts and culture space, offering unrivalled support for the sector from Big Night of Musicals with the National Lottery, to Blue Peter’s Amazing Authors with The Reading Agency. Hidden Treasures of The National Trust will also be back for a third series next year, working with the Trust to uncover more astounding stories of its properties’ treasures, and the staff and volunteers who look after them.

With around 140 hours of classical music and dance programming on television this year (23/24), the BBC continues to be the home of great performances from around the UK, from festivals to concerts and competitions. They include Franz Lehár’s laugh-out-loud operetta The Merry Widow from Glyndebourne, starring Danielle de Niese and conducted by John Wilson; Inside Classical performances showcasing the work of the BBC’s Orchestras including Marin Alsop conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Symphony Chorus and the London Adventist Choir at the Royal Albert Hall in Gospel Messiah in its European premiere; BBC Young Musician of the year celebrating the most promising young classical musical talents from across the UK; Britten’s mystical masterpiece Curlew River, filmed at the 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024; one of the most prestigious music competitions in the world, the Leeds International Piano Competition, and Dance Passion Swansea showcasing a remarkable range of dance, all filmed in and around Swansea and the Gower peninsula and featuring the principal dancer from the Royal Ballet – Swansea-born William Bracewell – in a stunning solo piece on Oxwich Bay.

And for Holocaust Memorial Day in 2025, a special single film will mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The Last Musician of Auschwitz is an extraordinary but little-known story of music made amid the terrors of the Holocaust.

The Read, where acclaimed actors combine with classic literature and breathe new life into iconic stories, launches its third series this autumn. New episodes feature readings of George Orwell’s 1984 performed by Sacha Dhawan; Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol performed by Anne-Marie Duff; Robert Louis Stephenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde performed by Reece Shearsmith and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights performed by Vinette Robinson.

Other highlights from BBC Arts this Autumn include a definitive new series telling the rollercoaster life of Elizabeth Taylor – Elizabeth Taylor: Rebel Superstar, out this Friday, featuring previously unheard archive and access to her family; a major new series on Mozart from the team behind Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius featuring Stephen Fry, Sheila Hancock, Richard E Grant, Adjoa Andoh, Chris Addison and a cast of experts and classical music commentators including sopranos Jane Crowe and Golda Schultz, Edward Gardner, David McVicar and more.

BBC Radio 3 and BBC orchestras and choirs

Live music, new commissions, and the celebration of contemporary composers – historical and living – are at the heart of BBC Radio 3’s upcoming programming. Radio 3 continues to be the only place to find live classical music every day, broadcasting from the finest UK festivals and concert halls, to international performances from the continent, thanks to its partnership with the European Broadcasting Union. Autumn also sees the BBC’s orchestras and choirs begin their new seasons across the country, having given over 300 performances in over 75 venues so far this year.

As we enter the second quarter of the 21st century, Radio 3 has commissioned 25 composers to write 25 pieces of music reflecting on one of the events happening in each year of the first quarter-century of the millennium, from 2000 to 2025. The 25 new commissions – recorded by BBC orchestras and choirs and New Generation Artists – will premiere on Tom Service’s Saturday Morning programme from 25/04/2025 and will be broadcast on the network throughout the week. Among the new works, Anna Clyne is inspired by the expectations for a new era in 2000, while Stephen Hough musically evokes the tragedy of 9/11, Errollyn Wallen remembers the London 2012 Olympics, and Thea Musgrave marks two years since the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Other composers include Karl Jenkins, Rakhi Singh, Gavin Higgins and Nkeiru Okoye.

Inspired by what would have been the 100th birthday of modernist musical giant Pierre Boulez, Radio 3 presents a landmark new 40-part series The Modernists, (W/T – from January 2025), each episode revealing the work of some of the 20th century’s greatest composers – from Takemitsu to Berio, Ruth Crawford Seeger and Stockhausen.

In the week of Pierre Boulez’s 100th anniversary, Radio 3 celebrates the legendary French composer with a day of special programming (30/03/2025), including Kate Molleson discussing Boulez’s legacy in key locations in France. On the composer’s actual birthday, on 26/03, the BBC Symphony Orchestra presents live performances of his works as part of a Total Immersion Day.

Marking the beginning of the BBC Singers’ centenary celebrations Radio 3 in Concert presents the ensemble’s Centenary Concert live from the Barbican Hall in London (02/10/2024), presented by Georgia Mann and Clive Myrie. Featuring a host of star artists and special guests including Eric Whitacre, Anna Lapwood, and Abel Selaocoe, alongside the Singers’ Chief Conductor Sofi Jeannin, the concert is part of a week-long celebration of the ensemble’s 100th birthday on Radio 3, including specially-recorded works from the group every day on Classical Live (30/09 – 04/10).

In 2025 Radio 3 celebrates 25 years of New Generation Artists (NGAs) with a day of music performed by current and former young artists on the station’s flagship talent scheme. The NGAs scheme is designed to support young musicians on the threshold of an international career to reach the next stage of their development, through opportunities to perform around the UK, concerts and recordings with the BBC orchestras and choirs, and studio recordings for Radio 3.

Coinciding with BBC Arts’ film The Last Musician of Auschwitz, Radio 3 marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz with a day of reflection (27/01/2025). There is a special focus on the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s new recording of Jonathan Dove’s In Exile – which features a cello part created for soloist Raphael Wallfish, whose mother, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, is a concentration camp survivor. Throughout the day, listeners hear from artists and refugees whose classical compositions and performances are firmly part of the canon, lifting the human spirit through the decades.

Also coming up on Radio 3 is a Day of Dance (08/11/2024) dedicated to the history of dance music– from Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances to Piazzolla’s tangos, medieval estampie to 19th century waltzes, tarantellas to polkas, ballet to bhangra. With some special guests over the course of the day, there is live music from the New Generation Artists on Classical Live, and the day culminates in a dance-themed Friday Night is Music Night with the BBC Concert Orchestra from Alexandra Palace in London, hosted by former Strictly Come Dancing contestant Katie Derham and Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood.

Linked to the first ever edition of the London Soundtrack Festival, on 21/03/2025 Radio 3 broadcasts a concert live from London’s Wigmore Hall, with a programme of film and game music including a new commission by Hildur Guðnadóttir. Also on the day, a special edition of Friday Night Is Music Night live from London’s Alexandra Palace features the BBC Concert Orchestra and conductor Richard Balcombe presenting some of the best-known themes ever written for screens large and small, including James Bond, ET, Poirot, Out of Africa, Pride and Prejudice and a tribute to composers and lyricists who would have turned 100 in 2025 – Ron Goodwin (633 Squadron), Alan Bergman (Windmills of Your Mind) and Richard Sherman (Mary Poppins). Also on the programme, the world premiere of a special suite of the greatest TV Quiz Show themes, arranged by Iain Farrington.

Highlights from the speech offering on Radio 3 include two Sunday Features. In Cathedral Music in Crisis (17/11/2024), sports broadcaster and choral music enthusiast Eleanor Oldroyd investigates some major challenges facing British cathedral choirs today, as she travels across the UK to explore how institutions are responding to fast changes in our modern society, tackling inequalities of gender, socio-economic status and ethnicity within their choirs. In Wolf Hall (24/11/2024) listeners follow composer Debbie Wiseman as she creates the soundtrack for the second instalment of Wolf Hall – the TV adaptation of the last book of Hilary Mantel’s trilogy, which is airing on BBC TV ten years after the first series. There are also contributions from actor Damian Lewis and director Peter Kosminsky.

After a record-breaking year for the 2024 BBC Proms with 10.6 million views on TV, 4.6 million streams on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, and an average main evening attendance at the Hall of 96%, the BBC Scottish Symphony takes a mini series of BBC Proms to South Korea for four concerts: from a ‘First Night’ with the orchestra’s Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth to a West End Musical Gala Concert and culminating in a suitably celebratory ‘Last Night’ with violinist Hilary Hahn, featuring some well-known favourites by Henry Wood and Edward Elgar.

BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds

BBC Radio 4 continues to delight and stimulate listeners with daily arts and culture programming across the network, with regular strands including Front Row, This Cultural Life, Screenshot, Add to Playlist, The Verb, A Good Read, Soul Music, as well as multi-part series and single documentaries.

The network will mark 100 years since the Surrealist manifesto with an exciting three-part series, Surrealism Remixed, presented by actor and art enthusiast Russell Tovey. Pioneered by a group of young disrupters in Paris in the 1920s, Surrealism had a shocking impact on the artistic world. Across the series Tovey will explore the history of the movement and why the power of Surrealism has become increasingly relevant to our contemporary digital world. With guests including Vic Reeves, David Shrigley, Gavin Turk, Dawn Ades and Martin Creed

Continuing to write and perform following his diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease earlier this year, actor Michael Patrick will present a behind-the scenes-documentary on his adaptation of The Tragedy of Richard III for Belfast’s Lyric Theatre, in which he plays the title role.

The Birth of Music sees writer Jude Rogers explores how the communal experience of music in ancient neolithic spaces might relate to the club and rave culture of today – with input from contemporary musicians who are fascinated and inspired by our mysterious megaliths.

In The Lion, The Witch and the Wonder, award-winning author Katherine Rundell presents a five-part series urging us to take children’s literature seriously.

Front Row will again be broadcasting live from the stage of the Booker Prize award ceremony. And the programme will also have a special edition celebrating storytelling which marks the 19th year of the BBC’s National Short Story Award and the 10th anniversary of the BBC’s Young Writer’s Award.

This Cultural Life forthcoming guests include Peter Kosminsky, Marina Abramovic, Nile Rodgers, Julie Taymor, Bill Nighy, Hanif Kureishi and David Gilmour.

Radio 4’s Screenshot with Mark Kermode and Ellen E Jones has special edition on film duo Powell and Pressburger, as part of BBC Film’s release of Made in England: the films of Powell and Pressburger.

Popular Music

Radio 1’s Live Lounge Month returns in October, with Camila Cabello, Shawn Mendes, JADE and more of the hottest acts in the world. In November, Radio 1 launches Radio 1 Anthems, a new extension for BBC Sounds helping young audiences discover and re-discover a wide range of music and acts supported by Radio 1 in the 2000s and 2010s with a dedicated focus on growing new on-air and off-air talent.

As part of Black History Month, BBC 1Xtra’s Future Figures initiative spotlights Black Britons who are making a positive impact in their community and across the nation from a variety of sectors, including the arts. On BBC Asian Network, Hype on the Mic returns to showcase performances from new and emerging British Asian rappers and MCs, as well as rap talent from all over the UK in October. Hosted by DJ Limelight and Kan D Man, up and coming DJs will perform some exclusive freestyles from the Asian Network studios, delivering some of the very best in UK Grime, Hip-Hop, Dubstep and Underground flavours to listeners.

On Radio 2, Trevor Nelson introduces the Queens Of Soul concert recorded in Malta, featuring the songs of Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, and Whitney Houston performed by guest singers, alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra. Listeners will also hear Lenny Henry introduce The Sound of Philadelphia concert, recorded at the Royal Albert Hall.

BBC Radio 6 Music’s Artists of the Year returns for a second year this November, with its list of 10 artists who have been championed by the station over the past 12 months, and Way With Words comes back for its third year to celebrate poetry, spoken word, rappers, poets and wordsmiths, with a focus of programming within Craig Charles’ show. This autumn also sees new Artist in Residence series presented by Julian Casablancas, Pet Shop Boys, Laurie Anderson and more.

On BBC Two and iPlayer, Later…. with Jools Holland returns with a stellar line up. A new series, Boybands Forever, dives into pop culture in the 90s and 00s, telling the tales behind the success of some of the UK and Ireland’s most celebrated popstars, who were idolised by millions of pop fans around the world.