The government's culture secretary Tessa Jowell has indicated that she will make a big announcement when she delivers her speech on the future of communications in the UK and gives her views on public service broadcasting.
The festival, which runs from August 24-26, coincides with a personal target Jowell has set herself to "get her head around everything by the end of August".
The BBC's plans, particularly its proposal to launch two daytime children's channels, have been aggressively opposed by the commercial sector.
It is not clear whether Jowell will approve all the corporation's plans, which include five new radio stations and four digital TV stations.
Speaking at the Radio Festival on Tuesday she said the BBC must show its services are "distinctive and not just designed to undercut the commercial sector".
At the BBC's AGM last week, BBC director general Greg Dyke called for the government to speed up its consultation on the new services to help the corporation achieve its goal to launch the new services by the end of the year.
The government responded by extending the consultation period by another three weeks. The deadline is July 27, giving Jowell just three weeks to reach a verdict before her speech at Edinburgh.
BBC director general Greg Dyke has already warned that if Jowell refuses any of the services, it might put its money into other areas on the grounds that it is "not the job of the BBC to spend licence fee payers' money to build a business for the commercial sector".
Dyke told the Radio Festival, "If we were not able to put this portfolio in place, we would have to look again at what level of investment the BBC would consider appropriate for digital radio."