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.
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 KBE ,
Steve Wright ,
Johnnie Walker MBE ,
Bob Harris ,
Jeremy Vine ,
Richard Allinson ,
Jonathan Ross OBE ,
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". 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
{Link without Title} , although many shows are broadcast from Birmingham (e.g. Janice Long) or Manchester (Mark Radcliffe).
Regular schedule as of April 2006:
00:00
Janice Long
03.00
Alex Lester : ''The Best Time Of The Day''
06.00
Sarah Kennedy : ''The Dawn Patrol''
07.30
Terry Wogan : ''Wake Up To Wogan'' (''or Wake Up In Wigan!'')
09:30
Ken Bruce including the Popmaster quiz
12:00
Jeremy Vine current affairs; successor to
Jimmy Young
14:00
Steve Wright ''Steve Wright in the Afternoon'' (''The Big Show'')
17:00
Chris Evans ''Drive Time''
19:00 See below
22:30
Mark Radcliffe (except Friday)
19:00
Simon Mayo : ''The Album Chart Show''
20:00
Humphrey Lyttelton Jazz
21:00
Clare Teal ''Big Band Special''
21.30 Specialist shows
19:00
Desmond Carrington ''The Music Goes Round''
20:00
Nigel Ogden : ''The Organist Entertains''
20:30 Specialist shows
21:30 Documentary
22:00
Steve Harley : ''Sounds of the 70's''
19:00
Nick Barraclough Country
20:00
Mike Harding Folk Music
21:00 Specialist shows
22:00 Documentary
19:00
Bob Harris Country
20:00
Paul Jones Blues
21:00 Specialist shows
22:00 Comedy Show
19:00 Specialist shows
19:30 ''
21:15 Book Sequence
21:30 ''Listen to the Band''
22:00
Mariella Frostrup : ''The Green Room'' (arts programme)
00:00
Mark Lamarr
02:00
Rockin With Suzi Q
03:00
Pete Mitchell
06:00
Mo Dutta
08:00
Brian Matthew : ''Sounds of the 60s''
10:00
Jonathan Ross
13:00 Comedy Hour
14:00
Stuart Maconie
17:00
Dermot O'Leary
19:00
Paul Gambaccini : ''America's Greatest Hits''
21:00 Features (often concert recordings)
22:00
Bob Harris
01:00
Pete Mitchell
04:00
Mo Dutta
07:00
Aled Jones : ''Good Morning Sunday'' (religious-themed breakfast show)
09:00 ''
Steve Wright 's Sunday Love Songs''(request show)
11:00
Michael Parkinson (
Jazz /
Easy Listening , entertainment news and reviews, Sunday papers)
13:00
Elaine Paige -
Show Tunes
14:30
Russell Davies
15:30
Dale Winton ''Pick of the Pops'' (nostalgia)
17:00
Johnnie Walker
19:00
Sheridan Morley
20:30 s)
21:00
Richard Baker : ''Your Hundred Best Tunes''
22:00
Malcolm Laycock - Celebrating ''The Age of Swing''
23:00
David Jacobs ''The David Jacobs Collection'' (musicals, film music)
Richard Allinson ,
Matthew Wright &
Mark Goodier are all stand in presenters and regularly cover many weekday shows when the regular presenter takes his/her holiday. They also present documentaries & specialist shows for the network.
List Of BBC Radio Stations
