The BBC's director general Tony Hall has recruited National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner and the Tate's Nicholas Serota to push what he described as the corporation's biggest commitment to the arts for a generation.
The BBC's new season of arts, announced on Tuesday, will include adaptations of Shakespeare's Richard III and Henry VI, following on from its acclaimed 2012 Hollow Crown season, and live broadcasts of plays and other events in collaboration with the Globe, Hay Festival, and Glyndebourne.
The BBC will also broadcast a sequel to its classic documentary series Civilisation, the 1969 TV landmark by art historian Kenneth Clark. The new take on Civilisation "for the digital age" will air on BBC2.
BBC2 will also show the first production from the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the Duchess of Malfi, starring Gemma Arterton.
A new strand, BBC Arts At ... will feature tie-ups with the Royal Academy of Arts, Opera North, the Barbican, the British Museum and the National Galleries of Scotland.
Hall announced last year that he would spend an extra 20% on new arts content across radio, the internet and television.
The new programming announced on Tuesday extends across TV, radio and online, as well as a relaunch for its partnership with the Arts Council, The Space.
"This is the strongest commitment to the arts we've made in a generation," said Hall at the launch at the BBC's New Broadcasting House. "We're the biggest arts broadcaster anywhere in the world but we want to be even better.
"I want BBC arts – and BBC Music – to sit proudly alongside BBC News. We'll be working more closely with our country's great artists, performers and cultural institutions."
Hytner has been appointed to the BBC executive board, with Serota leading a group of creative leaders who will act as a "sounding board" across the BBC, including the Royal Court's Vicky Featherstone.
The BBC's Jonty Claypole has been appointed director of arts, with Radio 2 controller Bob Shennan made the BBC's director of music.
Hall said Hytner, who will step down from the National Theatre next year, would "help us both with our creative vision for the BBC as we run up to the whole charter [renewal] process, but also very specifically help us with the arts and even more specifically to help us with his advice and encouragement on drama.
"Drama is something which is absolutely crucial to the BBC. I am proud of what we are doing but I think with Nick we can be even more ambitious."
Hall said Hytner might even produce or direct a BBC drama in the future. "He might do," said Hall. "We will work out how we can handle that in a way that is absolutely proper."
Hall said the BBC would broadcast more arts programming than ever before, with an increase to its overall arts budget – across TV, radio and online – of £2.75 million a year.
The BBC was unable to provide a specific figure for its total arts spend across all platforms, but indicated that its TV arts spend is currently around £15.5m a year, rising to more than £18m as a result of today's announcement.
Hall also unveiled a slate of new arts productions including talent such as Tom Hollander, who has just completed a portrait of Dylan Thomas and Simon Russell Beale and will make a film on Shakespeare.
Hall said the idea for a new series of Civilisation, nearly 50 years after the original, "came when I was standing in a queue for an arts exhibition in London and I thought 'Blimey! Look at this queue – it's full of all sorts of different people, young and old, black and white, people of all sorts of different backgrounds, and what can we do to make their experience, their ambition, even greater?'."
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