is a
BBC Television channel available to digital television (''
Freeview '',
Satellite and
Cable ) viewers in the
UK . The successor to an earlier digital channel called
BBC Knowledge , BBC Four began on
March 2 2002 – its first evening's programmes being
Simulcast on
BBC Two .
The channel broadcasts a mixture of
Art and
Science Documentaries , vintage
Drama (including many rare
Black And White programmes), and non-
English Language Film s.
On weekdays the channel shows a 30-minute global news programme called ''The World'', simulcast with and produced by
BBC World . It screens a huge number of original documentaries such as ''
The Century Of The Self '' and ''
The Trial Of Henry Kissinger ''.
Drama has given the channel its most popular programmes, with ''
The Alan Clark Diaries '' (2003) and ''
Fantabulosa '' (2006) being the highest rated, with over 800,000 viewers. A notable recent production was a live re-make of the
1953 science-fiction serial ''
The Quatermass Experiment '', adapted from the original scripts into a single, two-hour version, broadcast on the evening of Saturday
2 April 2005 . Discounting BBC Four's previous live relays of theatrical
Shakespeare productions, this was the first live made-for-television drama to be broadcast by the BBC for twenty years.
At the 2004
Edinburgh International Television Festival , BBC Four won the Non-Terrestrial Channel of the Year award.
On the Freeview
Digital Terrestrial platform, BBC Four is broadcast in a
Statistically Multiplexed stream in Multiplex 1 that timeshares with the
CBeebies channel; broadcasting from 7 pm to (up until) 7 am every day, although usually finishing earlier.
