Radio 4 ventures into film-making

The 90-minute film will be shot this year for likely broadcast in 2008

BBC Radio 4 is to make a film about London, which will be seen via the "red button" service on digital TV as the soundtrack is played on the station.

City Speaks, a project with the Arts Council of London and Film London, will also be shown at the capital's 3D Imax cinema and may be distributed UK-wide.

It will be based on a religious-themed novel by Peter Ackroyd, known for his "biography" of London from 2000.

And Radio 4 is likely to create further "multi-media" projects in the future.

A spokeswoman said that the idea was "the kind of thing the network was trying to do more of".

'Broad interest'

She believed that Radio 4's audience - which currently totals 9.34 million listeners per week, according to official ratings - would "welcome" the move into vision.

"They tend to be people who have a broad interest across a number of mediums, and I think the fact that Radio 4 is involved in this is reassuring to them.

"It's going to have the level of quality that they associate with the network."

City Speaks, which will be 90 minutes long, is likely to be broadcast at the start of 2008.

"It is something that we would want to make as widely available as possible," said the spokeswoman, raising the prospect the film could be shown around the UK.