Radio 1's Weekend Breakfast Show


Radio 1's Weekend Breakfast Show is a radio show that is broadcast on BBC Radio 1 on weekends. It's currently hosted by James Cusack from MediaCity in Salford.
Weekend Breakfast was an extension of Radio 1 Breakfast which, before June 2018, aired on weekdays from 6:30 to 10am, while the weekend show aired on Saturdays and Sundays. In June 2018, Radio 1 decided to incorporate the Friday breakfast show into the station's weekend schedule, using the weekend presenters. In November 2020, the BBC announced changes to the Radio 1 schedules, meaning Matt Edmondson and Mollie King would move from weekend breakfast to weekend afternoons to replace Dev, who left the station in December 2020, and that the weekend breakfast show would only be broadcast on weekends. As of January 2021, they started airing on Fridays as well.

History

Weekend breakfast programming on Radio 1 was originally a continuation of Junior Choice, which had been broadcast on the BBC Light Programme since 1954. However, by the early 1980s this was seen as old fashioned and the Junior Choice title was dropped in the early months of 1982, with the programme renamed as Tony Blackburn's Saturday/Sunday Show. Children's requests were finally dropped in October 1984 when a new weekend breakfast show was launched. Peter Powell was the first presenter and he was followed by, among others, Mark Goodier, Sybil Ruscoe, Bruno Brookes, Liz Kershaw, Gary Davies, Kevin Greening, Clive Warren, and Dave Pearce. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the weekend breakfast show was split into two different shows until on 20 September 2003, they were merged.
NoPresenterFromToDuration
1Spoony20 September 200317 September 2006
2Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates23 September 20067 October 2007
3Nihal13 October 200731 August 2008
4Chappers and Dave 6 September 200819 October 2008
5Nick Grimshaw25 October 200824 May 2009
6Chappers and Dave 30 May 200928 June 2009
7Dev4 July 200920 September 2009
8Edith Bowman26 September 20091 April 2012
9Gemma Cairney7 April 201223 March 2014
10Dev29 March 201411 November 2018
11Matt Edmondson and Mollie King16 November 20183 January 2021
12Adele Roberts9 January 202120 May 2023
13Ore Olukoga 21 May 20233 September 2023
14Sam McGregor and Danni Diston9 September 202314 December 2024
15James Cusack11 January 2025

Dev and Alice Levine (March - November 2018)

On 17 January 2018, BBC Radio 1 announced that Alice Levine would be shifted from the weekend afternoon slot to co-host with Dev on the Weekend Breakfast slot. Matt Edmondson filled Levine's afternoon slot. The show was then increased to three days.

Matt Edmondson and Mollie King (November 2018 - January 2021)

On 26 October 2018, BBC Radio 1 announced that Matt Edmondson and Mollie King would join the Radio 1's Weekend Breakfast Show, swapping with Dev and Alice Levine. The schedule change may have been sparked by Charlie Sloth's unexpected departure from Radio 1 in October 2018. The changes took into place on 16 November 2018. The first song of the show was Higher from The Saturdays and Flo Rida, as they called Greg James to pick it.

Show Length

At the beginning, the show had a length of 3 hours, from 7-10am. Beginning in September 2014, the show was then increased to 4 hours due to changes in the late night and early morning schedule.
On 5 September 2019, the early morning schedule changed again; Arielle Free hosted the weekend early breakfast slot, and Mollie King hosted a new show called "Radio 1's Best New Pop with Mollie King" on Friday 6-6:30 am. This resulted in the show length reducing to 3 hours 30 minutes for Fridays; and 3 hours for Saturdays and Sundays.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the show was adjusted to 7-11am, inclusive of Radio 1 Anthems at the final hour of the show. The adjustment was to help Radio 1 promote social distancing and to limit the number of staff allowed in the studio. The show was then moved to 7-10:30am in the September 2020 adjustments.