How old is radio 1

Or why Radio 1's first weather forecast prompted 12 complaints? Here are 50 facts to celebrate the stations' first 50 years. The first voice on Radio 1 was Tony Blackburn, right? Shortly after am on 30 September, broadcaster Paul Hollingdale was at the helm, with his Breakfast Special show broadcast simultaneously on both stations. The opening announcement was not what you'd call dynamic The two stations split at am. After a five-second countdown, Tony Blackburn officially launched Radio 1 with a jingle promising "too much fun" and the sound of a barking dog.

George Martin's Theme One, however, was technically the first piece of music on Radio 1. Blackburn also played Johnny Dankworth's Beefeaters under his opening link. Blackburn later revealed that the famous film footage of the launch was recorded the night before, and he had to write down the words, so he could replicate them when the station went live. Many of Radio 1's presenters were drawn from the ranks of pirate radio - but they found the BBC a lot more strait-laced.

Weather presenter Rosie O'Day received 12 complaints in the opening weeks of Radio 1 and 2. Because she had the audacity to be a woman. I'm sure she is a charming girl, but let us stick to a man for the weather news!

Radio 2's Ken Bruce has a licence to drive Routemaster double-decker buses, and owns six of them, which he hires out for weddings and funerals. Radio 1 launched half a decade after The Beatles' debut single, a fact that did not go unnoticed by the music industry. Trade magazine Record Retailer accused the BBC of "trailing years behind public taste" and warned "the new station must swing if it is to be effective".

Radio 2's own soap opera, Waggoners Walk, launched in Set in Hampstead, it was often controversial, covering story-lines like contraception and homosexuality. The show was cancelled at short notice in Some of the cast heard the news on the radio, and the writers responded by having aliens invade Hampstead Heath.

Terry Wogan made his Radio 2 debut in , presenting show Late Night Extra - "on the beat with music and news [and] off the record with pop". But it was The Fall who recorded the most Peel sessions - 32 in all. These days, DJs are expected to know everything about music - but no-one can be right all the time.

After several phone calls, he corrected the mistake, saying: "None of us are too big to apologise. Kenny Everett recorded several interviews with The Beatles for Radio 1 and 2 - but he also helped inspire one of their lyrics after taking an acid trip with John Lennon on the Weybridge golf course of all places.

To celebrate its fifth birthday in , Radio 1 released hundreds of balloons from the top of Broadcasting House. Attached to each balloon was a form on which the finder could write their favourite record title and return it to their favourite DJ, who would play it on air. In , Elaine Paige helped Pieter - a regular listener to her Radio 2 show - propose to his boyfriend live on air. Derek Jameson, who presented Radio 2's Breakfast Show from - , became a broadcaster late in life as a consequence of suing the BBC.

The former newspaper editor accused Radio 4's Week Ending of libel for saying he was "so ignorant he thought erudite was a type of glue". A reference to the Evening Standard newspaper in the opening verse was enough to breach the BBC's strict no-advertising policy. DJ Mike Read got the blame for banning Relax - but he says the decision wasn't in his power. I was just a BBC employee.

Even now, that's not terribly good. Read later made up with the band and provided a voice-over on the TV advert for their debut album. He has called this his "one big broadcasting mistake". In , Radio 1 managed to persuade Whitney Houston to cover for Simon Bates while he was on holiday.

Nowadays, almost every show has some sort of interactive element, but Annie Nightingale's Sunday Show was Radio 1's first dedicated request show. It ran for 12 years from Taping songs off the radio was a rite of passage days before streaming. It was illegal, of course, but Annie used it to her advantage. The item was so popular many of the stories were published in a book, and when Bates left Radio 1, he took Our Tune with him, revived it for his show on Atlantic , and brought it to television as part of Good Morning with Anne and Nick in — Mike Read refused to play it, and an official ban followed.

Curiously "Relax" had been played 90 times on Radio 1 and even featured on Top of the Pops before being banned. Her first venture into radio was with the Dread Broadcasting Corporation — a pirate station, the first in Europe run by the African-Caribbean community.

By she was presenting her own reggae show - Culture Rock , every Sunday. This was the first time the music got a regular slot on the BBC, despite it emerging onto the scene in the late s. It seems unimaginable now, but as recently as , Radio 1 could still only be heard on AM in some parts of the country.

A common complaint was that Radio 1 was difficult to hear on AM, especially at night, so from a new FM service gradually began to be developed. Well established voices Bob Harris and Andy Peebles covered the extra hours during the week, and newcomer Neale James from commercial and local radio, could be heard at the weekends. Matthew Bannister Radio 1 Controller from , was famous for attracting a completely new audience to the station. Bannister arrived with a remit to radically shake up Radio 1.

The station had kept its loyal audience since the s, but by , the output was thought to sound old, tired and worn out. Sitting in the Breakfast Show hot seat, he turned the programme upside down. His early morning slot was packed with innuendo which for many critics went too far. He encouraged two female guests to perform a strip show live on the programme, and humiliated some of his team on air, two examples from a list of edgy items.

After a tasteless joke about holocaust victim Anne Frank, a string of complaints followed. BBC management rejected this and he left the station. With young people using a huge variety of music apps, and creating their own music streams to share, what keeps them loyal to Radio 1 in ?

It must be the presenters. However, finding them is getting difficult. Greg James has already moved across from student radio, and listeners love him! John Peel Ken Garner looks at his legacy for the Voices project. The John Peel Archive. Keeping it Peel Radio 1 tribute. BBC Artists page. Annie Nightingale presents BBC Programme page.