Channel Four looks to turn radio on its head.

Next year will see Channel Four Radio make its first appearance on the UK's airwaves - Music Week looks at the broadcaster's plans in its effort to transform radio, and take on the BBC

by Paul Williams

Channel 4 was just three days old when it threw out the rulebook on how to do music television by broadcasting the first-ever episode of The Tube.

That introductory live show from Newcastle, on November 5 1982, set the template which, over the subsequent 25 years, has seen music as one of the cornerstones of its public broadcasting remit to provide new and alternative programming.

And now Channel 4 has turned its attention to the world's oldest broadcasting medium, with a similar pledge to transform commercial radio in the UK.

Submitting its application last Wednesday to regulator Ofcom for the second - and what will be the last - national commercial digital multiplex, the broadcaster is approaching this latest challenge in the only way it really knows - by pushing to one side what has gone before and firmly setting its own original agenda.

"We started with a blank sheet of paper," says Nathalie Schwarz, who was recruited by the broadcaster at the end of 2005 as CEO of its new division Channel 4 Radio. "We've taken nothing for granted, so all the urban myths, all the golden rules that have been handed from generation to generation have been left to one side and we've taken the view that actually radio has to be built for the future, learning and respecting what makes it such an amazing medium."