BBC Trust

Summary

This report presents the findings of our service review of BBC Radio 4, Radio 4 Extra, Radio 5 live and Radio 5 live sports extra.

Our review, announced in December 2014, considered:

• How well the BBC serves audiences with 'speech radio'
• How well Radio 4, Radio 4 Extra, Radio 5 live or Radio 5 live sports extra are performing against the terms of their service licences
• How well-positioned Radio 4, Radio 5 live or Radio 5 live sports extra are to deliver their service licence commitments in the future
• Whether the service licences for Radio 4, Radio 4 Extra, Radio 5 live or Radio 5 live sports extra should be changed

We carried out a public consultation between December 2014 and February 2015 and received 5256 responses from licence fee payers. In addition, we received a number of responses from industry and other stakeholder organisations. We also commissioned quantitative audience research to inform our thinking for the review and we interviewed members of BBC radio staff. This evidence, alongside performance monitoring and financial analysis, has given us a clear picture of these services. The review has found that each of the BBC’s network speech radio stations are considered to be high quality by audiences, deliver the requirements of their service licences and, with strong audience reach, each makes a significant contribution to delivering the BBC’s public purposes.

The full report can be found below together with supporting evidence for the review.

Full report

Public consultation report

Audience research report

Performance analysis

Responses from organisations

Audience Council submissions

Equality analysis