BBC unveils 'vibrant' new schedule - with yet more dinosaurs

Lorraine Heggessey, the controller of BBC1 for almost a year, has unveiled the first schedule she says she is proud to call her own.

The programming is characterised by a measure of the tried and tested. With the £150m extra investment promised by Greg Dyke, the BBC's director general, finally producing a dividend, Ms Heggessey announced a raft of new dramas for this autumn.

William Boyd has adapted his novel Armadillo for television, starring James Frain and Stephen Rea. Andrew Davis, who has successfully adapted several classics, turns his attention to Anthony Trollope, with The Way We Live Now, starring David Suchet.

Other dramas include a Bridget Jones-style series of a 30-something woman, called Linda Green, and a tale of Second World War bombing veterans, Night Flight, which Ms Heggessey will be hoping prove more successful than recent commissions such as The Cazalets, which failed to grab the public imagination.

After Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, warned recently that the BBC needed to win bigger audiences, Ms Heggessey is also banking on some old favourites to improve ratings. In comedy, there is the long-awaited revival of Absolutely Fabulous, which will add new stars to Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley.

Ms Heggessey is also taking a new series of Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, which began on BBC2. And a commission by her predecessor, Peter Salmon – the £7m successor to Walking with Dinosaurs, called Walking with Beasts – will finally be unveiled. It charts the range of mammals that developed in Britain up to the end of the last Ice Age after the dinosaurs died out. The BBC is in talks with several regional museums to organise an exhibition to accompany the series using rarely seen exhibits.

Announcing the schedule yesterday, Ms Heggessey said she had enjoyed an exciting first year. "We are already beginning to see my vision for a new BBC1 on screen," she said. "BBC1 must be an accessible mainstream channel, but it must also innovate with content, scheduling and technology to remain vibrant."

She defended using soaps to buoy the schedule, saying they helped to draw audiences to more challenging output. And despite using stars, such as Tamzin Outhwaite from EastEnders, to front "factual" programmes, Ms Heggessey said she would not allow such programmes to be a "star vehicle".

Alongside wildlife shows involving the actor Ewan McGregor and more vets series with Trude Mostue, Sir David Attenborough returns with a lengthy series about the sea, The Blue Planet, which has been five years in the making.

BBC1 will show England's qualifying games for the World Cup but it has not yet secured the rights to the finals. Ms Heggessey said she hoped to be able to do so and said many sports had suffered because they were seen only on cable and satellite. "A lot of people can't even name the English rugby union team now."