BBC 7

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BBC 7

Broadcast area	UK - National
First air date	15 December 2002
Frequency	DAB: 12B Freeview: 708 Virgin Media: 910 Live Stream Real/WM
Format	Comedy, Drama, and Children's programming
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. While the official remit of BBC 7 is to attract 25-44 year olds to speech radio, in reality the station is pitched towards an older listener, largely because of the amount of archive material transmitted.

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. Even if a programme fulfils these criteria, there may be copyright issues that prevent it from appearing on BBC 7.

The schedule spans the decades, from 1950s classics like the Goon Show to recent Radio 4 shows like 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 will feature original Doctor Who audio drama, featuring 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 also requires it to carry children's programming, which currently consists of two strands: Big Toe Books, for children aged 8 andup, which runs for one hour and can currently be heard daily at 7am, while Cbeebies Radio, for younger children, runs from 2pm to 5pm daily. These programmes, unlike the rest of BBC 7's output, consist almost entirely of original material.

As well as repeats from the main analogue networks, 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’s 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. It is pitched as "two hours of contemporary comedy" and is broadcast from 10pm to midnight Monday to Friday.

Comedy that has previously been commercially available as cassettes on the Laughing Stock label is broadcast. The station also broadcasts two American series, Garrison Keillor's Radio Show and The Twilight Zone.

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 2D satellite, and in the UK on DAB digital radio, cable television, and Freeview digital terrestrial television.

See also: List of BBC radio stations