BBC outline plans for future of radio drama

At a meeting with representatives from the Writers’ Guild and the Society of Authors last week, Jeremy Howe, Commissioning Editor for Drama at Radio 4, and Mark Damazer, the Controller of Radio 4, emphasised their commitment to retaining single plays on the network and outlined some upcoming changes in scheduling.

The biggest change concerns the Friday Play, which will be cut to 12 new commissions this year and then disappear all together (with one or two exceptions) next year after as a result of budget cuts. ‘We decided to cut an entire slot rather than take a slice out of everything,’ Jeremy Howe (pictured) explained.

Elsewhere across Radio 4 the volume of drama will remain about the same. ‘Radio 4 drama reaches almost 6.5 million people per week,’ Howe said, ‘and a single Afternoon Play reaches almost as many listeners as could see the plays at the National Theatre in a whole year.’

Radio drama, though cheap in comparison with TV drama (about £24,000 per hour rather than £500,000 for an episode of Casualty) is much more expensive than other radio genres. At a time of widespread budget cuts across the corporation, Howe and Damazer insisted that the continued volume of drama across the schedule was a demonstration of their commitment to it, and to writers.

• More information at the Writers' Guild blog