BBC3 to air more repeats

The number of repeats on BBC3 is to increase after the digital youth channel had its annual programming budget cut by £10m.

BBC3 controller Danny Cohen today admitted that repeats "around the fringes of the schedule" between 7pm and 8pm and after midnight would increase after the channel's annual budget was cut by a "sizable chunk" from about £90m to £80m as part of a "reprioritisation" of funding across the corporation.

He said cuts were being made across the channel's output, with no one genre being sacrificed wholesale.

"We have tried to reduce everything a little bit rather than wipe out a genre," said Cohen. "We have to repeat a bit more and there will be fewer original hours. But audiences in digital environments feel differently about repeats, which we prefer to call 'another chance to see'. Often the audience we get on a second transmission is more than the first."

Launching BBC3's winter and spring 2009 season of programmes today, Cohen admitted he did not yet know when singer Lily Allen's chatshow – which was panned by critics when it originally aired in February 2007 – would return.

"We have commissioned a second series and she is coming back, but she has got more than two careers. She is about to launch a new record. At the moment, there will be periods where she will be very focused on her music," he said.

"She is on the record as doing a second series and we are looking forward to having her back but we don't know at the moment."

In a recent interview, Allen criticised the first run of Lily Allen and Friends, saying it was "probably a five out of a 10", although Cohen said today she was joking.

"She made some light-hearted tongue-in-cheek comments that we all love Lily for," added Cohen.

He also said disabled modelling series Britain's Missing Top Model would not return, despite a successful first series.

"We feel it has done the job for us. We wanted to do a thought-provoking series about disability in modern life and it did that," he added.

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