BBC beefs up arts spending

There had been a growing feeling from some sectors that the corporation was not spending enough and straying from its public service remit.

There were also fears that, with the introduction of arts channel BBC Four, all arts programming would be sidelined on to the digital service.

Director general Greg Dyke has already admitted that 2001 was not a great year for arts scheduling.

But the BBC is to plough £3.3m into new arts programmes, up £1.5m on its 2001 arts programme budget.

Satisfy

A working party is also being set up to decide how future arts programming should be addressed and how it should be split between BBC One, Two and Four.

The BBC hopes to attract both new arts viewers and satisfy those already interested in the subject.

The series Rolf on Art, in which Rolf Harris discusses popular artists, has been commissioned for a second series after winning a peaktime audience of 6.1m.

The programme was derided in certain quarters as the embodiment of the BBC's dumbing down of the arts because a celebrity was fronting it.

But the show has been heralded as a success becaus it opened the door for non-experts to enjoy art.

Dyke said: "It is not about providing arts programming to the elite but about bringing art to people who would not normally watch."

Modern novelists

Spearheading the new arts drive is a three-part series on the life of Leonardo da Vinci, narrated by BBC executive and new chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Alan Yentob.

Other subjects to feature in forthcoming documentaries include Christopher Wren, Michelangelo and Lord Byron.

Modern novelists Patricia Cornwell and E Annie Proulx will also be covered.

Studies in the lives of 19th Century writers George Eliot, Mary Shelley and Jane Austen have been commissioned to coincide with new dramas.

Four Weddings and a Funeral actress Anna Chancellor is set to narrate the documentary about Austen.

Eliot's Daniel Deronda will be adapted for the small screen while a new version of Austen's Mansfield Park is also going into production.