Radio 4 Extra (formerly Radio 7) is a much-loved BBC radio station used by 1.5 million people. In October 2026, it was announced that the BBC will close this station in order to save money. This is in spite of Radio 4 Extra being the cheapest of the BBC's channels. We call upon the BBC not to close this service, and instead to save costs elsewhere, for instance by cutting some of its less-used channels.

Radio 4 Extra lends itself especially well to linear broadcasts, providing access to archive programmes that would otherwise be difficult to listen to or find, even if they are made available on BBC Sounds. Indeed, for these types of programme the curation that Radio 4 Extra provides is invaluable. Many people enjoy the company that this station provides, both at home and when travelling, via DAB, and would greatly miss it. Radio 4 Extra is cheap to run, costing just £4 million annually, with a cost-per-listener-hour of just 0.6p.

This contrasts with some of the BBC's other digital spin-off stations, none of which have anywhere like the same number of listeners. Radio 1 Dance, Radio 1 Anthems and Radio 3 Unwind were all launched on DAB by the BBC in recent years, and all of them average around half a million listeners. Arguably, they duplicate content already available on the parent channels. Radio 1Xtra has 769,000 listeners according to RAJAR and yet costs £9 million, with a cost-per-listener-hour of 5p. The BBC would save more money, and disadvantage fewer people, by cutting one or more of these services instead.

We are also concerned by what the closure of 4Extra will mean for the long-running programme Daily Service, which has been broadcast since 1928. This national religious programme was only moved to 4Extra as recently as 2024, from its old home at Radio 4 Longwave. We would like to see the programme given a permanent home, either on Radio4 Extra or elsewhere.

Please BBC, do not destroy one of the UK's most popular, and most irreplaceable, radio channels.