BBC Four

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General Info

## Biographical information

### Date of birth

2 March 2002

**BBC Four** is a British free-to-air television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002,

## History

BBC Four launched on 2 March 2002 at 7:00 pm GMT, having been delayed from the original planned 2001 launch. BBC Four began originally as a late schedule to BBC Two, before it received its own channel, along with BBC Three. Curiously, BBC Four had to launch before BBC Three as a result of the government delaying approval plans. The channel replaced BBC Knowledge, an educational and cultural channel which had undergone many changes throughout its lifetime; in its final format it carried a schedule of documentaries and art programming, essentially a test of the new BBC Four schedule. BBC Four would rebrand this channel, and bring it into line with the well recognised BBC One and Two brands at the same time. Planning for the new channel, along with the new BBC Three, had been in progress since October 2000; however, the incumbent government delayed approving the new BBC digital plans. The BBC Four plans were approved earlier, and as a result launched before BBC Three.

BBC Four was different from the old BBC Knowledge: the channel would be more heavily promoted with more new and original programming and the channel would not be broadcast 24 hours a day. This was because on the Freeview digital terrestrial platform, BBC Four is broadcast in a statistically multiplexed stream in Multiplex B that timeshares with the CBeebies channel (which is on air from 06:00 until 19:00). As a result, BBC Four broadcasts from 19:00 to around 03:35 each night, with an hour's down-time and promotions for CBeebies before the start of that channel's schedule.

On 12 May 2011, BBC Four was added to the Sky EPG in the Republic of Ireland on channel 230. It later moved to EPG 211 to free up space for new channels. It later moved to channel 143 on 1 May 2018 to sit beside the Northern Irish versions of BBC One and BBC Two there, and the 200s being used for +1 channels.

On 17 August 2018, BBC Four announced BBC 4.1, a special two nights of programming which would revolve around artificial intelligence (AI) selecting the programmes broadcast on the channel, based on "what BBC Four audiences might like, based on the channel's previous schedules and programme attributes." It would then "[rank] programmes it thought were most relevant [to what BBC Four viewers would like].he programming was aired on the nights of 4 and 5 September 2018

This included a few special programmes about AI,

On 19 February 2019, Virgin Media stopped providing BBC Four in standard definition.

Due to the launch of BBC Scotland on 24 February 2019, BBC Four has been on a lower Freeview EPG number in Scotland than elsewhere, moving to 82 to make room for BBC Scotland. Following eventual closures, it moved to channel 75 there, and later to channel 68, and eventually channel 55.

On 4 November 2020, due to Ofcom proposals regarding certain PSB channels requiring greater prominence on each UK TV provider's channel listing, BBC Four moved to channel 24 in Scotland, while every channel from that number (ITV4) to channel 54 (5SELECT) moved down one place.

On 9 April 2021, the day that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh died, BBC Four was suspended for a whole day so the BBC could continue coverage of the Duke's death across its television, radio and online services. The next day (10 April) BBC Four resumed airing at the normal time of 7:00 pm.

During the rollout of BBC's new corporate logo on 20 October 2021, the logo of BBC Four was also changed. In line with BBC's other domestic services, it is no longer seen in boxed form. Its most notable change, however, is in its colour, which is purple instead of black.

## Organisation

The channel direction is determined by the channel's remit, set by royal charter and the corporation's governing body (the BBC Board), and by the channel controller. In October 2013, following the departure of Richard Klein from the controllership, the management of the channel changed, with the role of Controller of BBC Four scrapped: from this point the Controller of BBC Two would have ultimate oversight of BBC Four as part of their role, absorbing some of the former duties of the Controller of BBC Four, but a new 'Channel Editor' post, reporting up to this controller, would be created to take day-to-day charge of Four. The controllers of BBC Four from 2002 to 2016 have been:

## Presentation

Main articles: BBC Four idents and History of BBC television idents
The channel's initial series of idents were generated dynamically reflecting the frequencies of the continuity announcers' voice or of backing music and were designed by Lambie-Nairn. As a result, no two idents were ever the same. The first continuity announcer was Zeb Soanes.

When the channel first started airing, it used the slogan "Everybody Needs A Place To Think", but the BBC stopped using this several months after the launch. However the BBC Four logo and above slogan can be found, engraved on benches along the South Bank in London, between the London Eye and Waterloo Bridge.

On 10 September 2005, the channel began showing new idents comprising a central BBC Four logo surrounded by four quadrants which show different stages of the same footage thus making for a sort of optical illusion; for example, a swimming pool where a person on an inflatable ring appears in the bottom-left corner, though ripples don't enter the remaining quarters. Although the image appears as one at the start of the ident, by the end it is clearly four separate images.

In March 2019, BBC Four added several new idents inspired by "oddly satisfying videos" in tandem with the quadrants theme, originally premiering for a programme season honouring the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web.

## See also

* List of documentary channels
* BBC Four World Cinema Award
* List of television stations in the United Kingdom