Paul Robinson
Monday September 24, 2007
The Guardian
Last weekend on Radio 4's Saturday Live guest contributor Tony Blackburn revealed that the greatest radio revolution to hit his household was the newly-acquired WiFi radio which enables him to listen to a plethora of radio stations across the globe. The revelation was surprisingly apposite from the man whose voice was the first to be heard on Radio 1 by 19 million listeners and for whom the greatest audience competition, at the time, came from Radio 4's 8am news bulletin.
Radio 1 (and Radios 2, 3 and 4) are 40 years old on Sunday and in that time they have seen competition explode. When Radio 1 launched on 247 metres medium wave, a frequency now ironically used by national commercial station Virgin Radio, it had virtually no competition. The pirate radio stations which gave birth to the BBC pop station had virtually disappeared as a result of the Marine Offences Act and there was Radio Luxembourg in the evening with its fading signal on 208m. Blackburn was himself an ex-pirate as were other Radio 1 DJs, because legal commercial radio didn't start in the UK until October 1973 with LBC and Capital in London. The other source of talent was either the Light programme, which was renamed Radio 2 - Terry Wogan went from there to Radio 1- or Radio Luxembourg with future Radio 1 DJs from Jimmy Savile to Steve Wright doing a stint in its fortress-like building.
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