Media UK

BBC Radio 1

Introduction

Radio 1, from the BBC, is the UK's premier new music station. . Playing mainstream music during the day and switching to a specialist niche format in the evenings, Radio 1's output is aimed at 15- to 30-year-olds.

History

Radio 1 was established following the Marine Offences Act 1967 which outlawed the pirate radio stations broadcasting to Britain from the sea such as Radio London, and Radio Caroline, . These had been broadcasting pop music with jingles and commercials in an American style to highly populated coastal areas of the country since 1964. There was strong public pressure, including public demonstrations, to keep them 'on the air', however these stations were unregulated and did not pay any fees to the music artistes.

The Government prepared a plan for replacing the pirates when the legislation outlawing them came into force. The BBC was asked to create a 'Popular Music Service' during the hours outside peak-viewing of television. Edward Short announced in Parliament in June 1967 the BBC would open their new 'pop channel' on September 30th. The station would broadcast continuous pop music from 7AM to 7.30PM followed by light music and entertainment until 2AM. On July 27th 1967, the BBC Director of Radio, Frank Gillard, announced plans to 'kill off' the Light Programme, Home Service and Third Programme. In future it would be 'Radio by Numbers'.

After further BBC deliberation, and a mammoth amount of media publicity, new names were given to the above stations and Radio 1 was born, using the 16 existing medium-wave relay transmitters of the Light Programme on 247m. The Light Programme was renamed BBC Radio 2 using the long wave and FM frequencies. The Third Programme was renamed BBC Radio 3 and the Home Service became Radio 4.

Radio 1 opened on September 30th 1967 at 7:00am. Presenter Tony Blackburn was first DJ to broadcast on the new station, and the first record played on was Flowers in the Rain by The Move. The breakfast programme remains the most prized slot in the Radio 1 schedules, with every change of presenter exciting considerable media interest.

The initial presenter lineup consisted of Tony Blackburn, Simon Dee, Stuart Henry, Kenny Everett, Duncan Johnson, David Rider, Emperor Rosko, Dave Cash, Keith Fordyce, Denny Piercy, Ray Moore, Jimmy Young, Tony Hall, Pete Brady. David Symonds, Pete Myers, Bob Holness, Terry Wogan, Barry Alldis, Mike Lennox, Keith Skues, John Peel Jack Jackson, Chris Denning, Johnnie Moran, Pete Murray, Ed Stewart, Pete Drummond, Alan Freeman and Mike Raven.

Radio 1 initially broadcast on 1214Khz medium wave (or 247 metres as it was referred to at the time) and moved to 1053/1089Khz (275/285 metres)in the late 70's. In the 1970s and early 1980s it was allowed to take over Radio 2's FM transmitters for a few hours per week, most notably for the Top 40 Singles Chart on Sunday afternoons. Eventually it acquired its own national FM network on 97–99 MHz in 1988, and its old mediumwave frequencies were reallocated to commercial stations in 1994.

There were major changes to the station in the mid 1990s by the then controller, Matthew Bannister. He led a campaign to return Radio 1 into a youth station catering for the under 25s. Although originally launched as a youth station, by the early 1990s, its loyal listeners (and presenters) had aged with the station. Bannister had a ruthless purge of the older DJs and banned old music from the daytime playlist. Bannister promoted Chris Evans to the the breakfast show. Evans was eventually sacked in 1996, and was replaced by Mark and Lard (Mark Radcliffe and Marc Riley), who were in replaced by Zoe Ball just 6 months later in October 1997. Listening figures continued to decline but the station succeeded in its aim to target a younger age group. In 2000, Zoe Ball was replaced by friend and fellow laddette Sara Cox, but despite heavy promotion listening figures for the iconic breakfast show continued to fall. In 2004 Cox was replaced by Chris Moyles.

Ironically, many of the DJs ousted by Bannister (such as Johnnie Walker and Steve Wright) joined Radio 2, which has currently overtaken Radio 1 as the UK's most popular radio station.

Some or all material in this page has been adapted from the BBC Radio 1 entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Radio_1), or others, in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org), the free encyclopedia.