Paul McGann

Big Finish have announced that a deal has been made with the BBC's digital radio channel, BBC7 to bring a new series of audio Doctor Who to the airwaves. The season will begin with the first episode of "Storm Warning" on Saturday 6th August at 6.30pm on BBC7 and continues through to the 19th November.

Says Jason Haigh-Ellery the co-producer of the Big Finish audio adventures of Doctor Who: 'I contacted BBC7 about two years ago about the possibility of broadcasting some of our productions. Although interested, the money required to gain additional clearances wasn’t available within BBC7’s budgets at that time. Two months ago, I was contacted by Mary Kalemkerian (Controller of BBC7) stating that funds where now available and I went in for a meeting with her. We soon agreed that having a running series of 16 linked episodes would be the best way to go and decided to broadcast the first McGann series with a slight amendment, replacing Minuet in Hell with Invaders from Mars. This was due to some of the content within Minuet being deemed unsuitable for early evening broadcast.'

Before going ahead, Big Finish checked with Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner (Executive Producers of the new television series) and both were happy to give their blessing to the BBC7 McGann season.

The four stories being broadcast are "Storm Warning", "Sword of Orion", "The Stones of Venice" and "Invaders from Mars". The BBC7 broadcasts will act as a run up to the Christmas Special and second season of the Doctor Who television series.