BBC Radio 4 Extra

BBC Radio 4 Extra is a British digital radio station broadcasting archive repeats of comedy and drama programmes nationally, 24 hours a day. It is the principal broadcaster of the BBC's spoken-word archive, and as a result the majority of its programming originates from that archive. It also broadcasts extended and companion programmes to those broadcast on sister station BBC Radio 4, and provides a "catch-up" service for certain Radio 4 programmes.

The station launched in December 2002 as BBC7, broadcasting a similar mix of archive comedy, drama and current children's radio. The station was relaunched as Radio 4 Extra in April 2011. For the first quarter of 2013, Radio 4 Extra had a weekly audience of 1.642 million people and had a market share of 0.95%.

History

BBC7

The station was initially launched as BBC7 on 15 December 2002 by comedian Paul Merton. The first programme was broadcast at 8pm and was simulcast with Radio 4. The station, referred to by the codename 'Network Z' while in development, was so named to reflect the station's presence on the internet and on digital television in addition to radio. The station broadcast mostly archived comedy and drama, in that the programme was either three or more years old or had been broadcast twice on their original station.