article

BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and is the most popular station in the UK. It broadcasts throughout the UK on FM radio between 88 and 91 MHz from its studios in Western House, adjacent to Broadcasting House in central London. Programmes are also relayed on DAB, Sky Digital, Cable TV, Freeview and the Internet.

The station started at 7:00am on September 30, 1967, and succeeded the Light Programme, with some of the Light's music shows transferring to the newly-launched Radio 1. The first show however had actually started at 5.30am (on the Light programme) but continued on with Breakfast Special from Paul Hollingdale as Radio 1 split off.

History

In the early years, much programming and music was common to both stations, particularly on the shared FM frequency. Radio 2 gradually settled down as a middle of the road station playing a mixture of laid-back pop/rock, folk and country, jazz and big-band music, easy listening, light classics, and 'oldies', with significant amounts of comedy and sport; this policy continued until the late 1980s with new controller Frances Line repositioning the station. An ageing Radio 1 audience was sticking with that station; Line repositioned Radio 2 to appeal exclusively to older listeners and introduced a lineup of older presenters and "light music" pitched squarely at a 50+ audience. Although popular with its target audience, this policy alienated younger listeners who had previously time-shared between Radio 1 and Radio 2; the station's audience fell drastically, taking another hit when sport coverage was moved to Radio 5; the rise of album-rock commercial stations also impacted Radio 2's audience, taking younger listeners away. Radio 2 was neglecting the fact that by the mid-nineties a substantial audience in their forties, fifties and early sixties had grown up with rock and modern pop, and were still listening to contemporary music; they and the generation that had been abandoned by Radio 1 had largely deserted the BBC for commercial stations. Something had to change.

Line was replaced by James Moir in 1996. Moir rapidly repositioned Radio 2 as a station with an AOR/contemporary playlist by day and more specialist broadcasting in the evenings, moving many presenters across from the increasingly youth-oriented Radio 1. The schedule (particularly on Friday evenings and Sundays) still bears some hallmarks of the "easy listening" era, but Radio 2 is now firmly established as "the nation's favourite", a title the BBC has started using to describe it rather than Radio 1.

Today Radio 2 is the most listened to radio station in the UK, with its schedule filled with well-known and respected broadcasters like Sir Terry Wogan OBE, Steve Wright, Ken Bruce, Paul Gambaccini, Johnnie Walker MBE, Bob Harris, Jeremy Vine, Jonathan Ross OBE, Janice Long, Mark Lamarr, Alex Lester, Lulu and Michael Parkinson CBE. Chris Evans has presented a weekly show on the network since September 2005 and has recently taken over weekday drivetime duties.

The station now has a demographic of adult listeners, generally from mid-20s and up, and its daytime playlist tends to feature music from the 1980s and 1990s as well as contemporary chart, album and indie music. The station's appeal is both broad and deep, with a mixture of accessible daytime programming and specialist programming for enthusiasts of particular types or eras of music

Weekday evenings tend to feature specialist music programmes -- a range of genres are covered including jazz, folk music, blues, country and western, reggae, classic rock, showtunes and also biographies and documentaries on various musical artists and genres. This specialist programming typically runs between 7pm and 10.30pm.

Brian Matthew's "Sounds of the Sixties" remains a popular fixture on the Saturday schedule, with Steve Harley's shorter "Sounds of the Seventies" running midweek.

On Sundays the schedule reverts for much of the day to something decidedly closer to its old style, with presenters like Richard Baker and David Jacobs and long-standing programmes like "Sunday Half Hour" and "Your Hundred Best Tunes".

Whilst being adult-oriented, Radio 2 does not broadcast complete works of classical music, the domain of Radio 3, or offer in-depth discussion or drama, the job of Radio 4 (Jeremy Vine's replacement for the Jimmy Young show does cover current and consumer affairs, but in a relatively informal way). Until the advent of Radio Five Live, Radio 2's medium wave frequencies were the BBC's main radio outlet for sports coverage (before becoming Five Live, Radio 5 was originally created by splitting off Radio 2's mediumwave frequencies, leaving Radio 2 on FM only).

Being a BBC station, it is funded by the television licence fee, and does not broadcast commercials.

BBC Radio 2's last closedown was at 02:02 GMT on 27 January 1979. Sarah Kennedy (who, following the fading of her 1980s television career, has been a daily early morning presenter on Radio 2 since 1993) was at the Newsdesk after Brian Matthew finished the "Round Midnight" programme. From 02:00-05:00 GMT the following night onwards, late-night listeners could listen to "You and the Night and the Music". (Although, throughout the 1980's and early 90's, a programme called "Nightride" also broadcast at this time). Radio 2 has therefore had the longest period of continuous broadcasting of any national radio station in the UK - more than twenty-five years to date.

On this station, the BBC Pips are broadcast at 07:00 and at 08:00 on weekdays between gaps in Terry Wogan's self-styled banter, then again at 1700 at the end of Steve Wright's afternoon show. When Jonathan Ross sat in for Wogan in 2004, he failed to cut his own banter and consequently spoke over the pips.

BBC Radio 2 moved its studios from Broadcasting House to the adjacent Western House in 2005 *, although many shows are broadcast from Birmingham (e.g. Janice Long) or Manchester (Mark Radcliffe).

Presenters and shows

Newsreaders (current)

Controllers of BBC Radio 2

Official Logos

Image:BBC Radio 2logo 1967.jpeg|1967-1970 Image:BBC Radio 2logo 1970.jpeg|1970-1980 Image:BBC Radio 2logo 1985.jpeg|1980-1990 Image:BBC Radio 2logo 1992.jpeg|1990-1994 Image:BBC Radio 2logo 1996.jpeg|1994-1997 Image:BBC Radio 2logo 1998.jpeg|1997-2000 Image:BBC Radio 2.png|2000-present day

Logo images from TV & Radio Bits

See also

External links

BBC national radio stations | BBC Radio 2 DJs

BBC Radio 2 | BBC Radio 2 | BBC Radio 2

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "BBC Radio 2".

Home Page • arts • business • computers • games • health • hospitals • home • kids & teens • news • physicians • recreation• reference • regional • science • shopping • society • sports • world