BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 14 million weekly listeners. It specialises in 20th and 21st century popular music and a range of content. The 'About Radio 2' BBC webpage says: "With a repertoire covering more than 60 years, Radio 2 plays the widest selection of music on the radio - from classic and mainstream pop to country, folk, jazz, musical theatre, soul, hip hop, rock 'n' roll, gospel and blues."
Radio 2 was launched in 1967 to replace the BBC Light Programme. It broadcasts throughout the UK on FM between and from studios at Broadcasting House in London and MediaCityUK in Salford. Programmes are broadcast on FM radio, digital radio via DAB, digital television and BBC Sounds.
According to RAJAR, the station broadcasts to a weekly audience of 12.6 million with a listening share of 13% as of 2025.
History
1967–1986
The network was launched at 5:30am on Saturday 30 September 1967, replacing the BBC Light Programme, with some of the Light Programme's music shows transferring to the newly launched BBC Radio 1. The first show had started on both Radio 1 and Radio 2 but continued with Breakfast Special presented by Paul Hollingdale as Radio 1 separated at 7am for Tony Blackburn. The first record played on Radio 2 was the title track to the 1965 film The Sound of Music by Julie Andrews.Radio 2 was allocated the Light Programme's longwave and FM frequencies, while Radio 1 used its mediumwave frequencies. In early years, much programming and music was common to both stations, particularly on the shared FM frequency. Radio 1 was targeted at the audience of pirate radio stations, whereas Radio 2 settled down as a middle of the road station playing laid-back pop and rock, folk and country, jazz and big-band music, easy listening, light classical music and oldies, with significant amounts of comedy and sport. Radio 1 continued to take some FM airtime from Radio 2 until being allocated its own, separate FM frequencies in the late 1980s.
Notable broadcasters on Radio 2 in the 1970s and 1980s are Tom Edwards and Ray Moore, who both presented the early breakfast show, Terry Wogan on breakfast, replaced by Ken Bruce and later Derek Jameson; Jimmy Young and his lunchtime current affairs show; David Hamilton on mid-afternoons and John Dunn at what became known as drivetime. In its early years, the station, as the Light Programme had done, played a large amount of specially-recorded music because of needle time restrictions imposed by the Musicians' Union.
On 6 January 1975, broadcasting hours for Radio 2 were reduced due to budget cuts at the BBC. The 5am – 2am schedule was scaled back to a 6am start-up from Mondays to Saturdays, and 6:55am on Sundays. The station closed down at around 12:30am each day. However, from 29 September 1975, the closedown was brought forward to 12:10am on weekdays and 12:33am on Saturdays and Sundays. There were exceptions, especially over Christmas and New Year periods, when hours would be temporarily extended. The pre-1975 schedule was reinstated on 1 April 1978. On 23 November 1978, the station moved from longwave to medium wave.
On 27 January 1979, Radio 2 became the first national 24-hour radio station in the UK.
Frances Line: 1986–1996
The first half of the 1980s had seen presenters such as Kenny Everett, David Hamilton and Steve Jones increasingly feature more contemporary pop music in their playlists. In response to the controversy these changes had caused in some circles, Frances Line, head of music, repositioned the station in April 1986 to appeal exclusively to the over-50s, introducing older presenters and basing the playlist around nostalgia, easy listening and light music. As a result, David Hamilton quit the station at the end of 1986, claiming the music policy had become "geriatric", although the appointment of Derek Jameson as the host of The Radio 2 Breakfast Show, made to coincide with the changes, did appeal to an older demographic. Although popular with its target audience, the policy alienated many younger listeners, who had listened to both Radio 1 and Radio 2, and the station's audience fell.In 1990, the station suffered two further blows. It lost its medium wave signal, to allow for the launch of BBC Radio 5, and BBC Radio's sports coverage, which had been broadcast on the station's MW frequencies, moved with the frequencies to the new station.
The late 1980s saw the launch of "gold" spinoffs from Independent Local Radio stations across many parts of the UK, playing classic pop and rock. Despite these stations only being available on MW, they still took some of Radio 2's audience, so with the station's audience in decline, a change of emphasis was needed. In 1992, the weekday daytime music policy was slightly adjusted with pre-1950 music primarily confined to Sundays, and the network's playlist of light classical music was reduced following the launch of Classic FM in September 1992. Radio 2's profile was boosted by the return of Terry Wogan at the start of 1993 but, following the generational shift at Radio 1, commercial radio, helped further by the 1993 launch of Virgin Radio, had taken the highest share of the national audience by the mid-1990s.
"The Nation's Favourite" – 1996 onwards
Line was replaced by James Moir in 1996. Moir repositioned Radio 2 with a largely AOR/contemporary playlist by day, aimed at a more mature audience than Radio 1 but still embracing new music, and more specialist broadcasting by recognised genre experts in the evenings.Unlike the early-1990s repositioning of Radio 1, in which the BBC lost many well-known names, many former Radio 1 presenters stayed with the corporation and moved across to Radio 2.
Radio 2 has the highest listening figures of any station in the UK, its schedule filled with broadcasters such as Tony Blackburn, Sara Cox, Jeremy Vine, Mark Radcliffe, Trevor Nelson, Jo Whiley, Paul Gambaccini, Gary Davies, Zoe Ball and Bob Harris.
As well as having most listeners nationally, it ranks first in many regions above local radio stations. BBC Radio 2 played to 27% of the available audience in 2006.
In February 2007, Radio 2 recruited Jeff Smith, director of UK and International programming at Napster and a former head of music at Radio 1, as its new head of music. Smith joined the network on 26 March.
In the first quarter of 2011, Radio 2 was part of an efficiency review conducted by John Myers. His role, according to Andrew Harrison, the chief executive of RadioCentre, was "to identify both areas of best practice and possible savings."
On 29 July 2013, Radio 2 changed its "sonic logo" for the first time in 15 years, replacing the one composed by US jingle company GrooveWorx with a new seven-note melody composed by British composer and producer Jem Godfrey. This coincided with the launch of a new jingle package produced by Godfrey in association with Wisebuddah Productions, marking Radio 2's second new package in as many years.
Radio 2 has run several "pop-up" DAB services to cover special events, the first being BBC Radio 2 Eurovision, providing coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest 2014. The station returned in 2015 for coverage of that year's contest. Others include BBC Radio 2 Country covering the C2C: Country to Country festival and BBC Radio 2 50s, a service dedicated to music programmes covering the 1950s.
During 2018, Radio 2 had numerous presenter reshuffles. In May, drivetime host Simon Mayo was joined by evening DJ Jo Whiley in a new format. The move proved unpopular with listeners, and by October 2018, Mayo announced his intention to leave the station, later adding that this was so he could help launch the new classical music radio station Scala Radio in March 2019, and would continue his BBC Radio 5 Live film review programme. Mayo and Whiley's last show together was broadcast on 20 December 2018, while Whiley moved back to her evening slot, with Mayo's final show on Radio 2 broadcast on 21 December. Sara Cox was later announced as the new drivetime host, starting on 14 January 2019.
In September 2018, Chris Evans announced that he was leaving The Radio 2 Breakfast Show to join Virgin Radio. He was replaced by former Radio 1 Breakfast DJ Zoe Ball on 14 January 2019.
Between 26 and 29 September 2019, Radio 2 broadcast a pop-up DAB station called Radio 2 Beatles to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of Abbey Road.
In 2022, the station announced that their annual music festival Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park would not be returning to London's Hyde Park in 2022, but would take place over two days at Temple Newsam Park in Leeds, with acts such as Kaiser Chiefs, Simple Minds and the station's Kitchen Disco presenter Sophie Ellis-Bextor appearing, but it was cancelled due to the death and state funeral of Elizabeth II. The following year, it was announced that Radio 2 in the Park would place in Leicester's Victoria Park, headlined by Kylie Minogue, and featuring Bananarama, Rick Astley, Sam Ryder, James Blunt and Tears for Fears.
Also in 2022, Steve Wright announced that he was to be stepping down from hosting his afternoon show after 23 years. Scott Mills was to replace him, although Wright was to continue hosting his long running Sunday Love Songs show and would also host some special programmes for the station. In late 2023 he was announced as the new host of Pick of the Pops on Saturday afternoons.
On 7 February 2024, the BBC announced plans to launch a spin-off station on DAB and online via BBC Sounds. The Radio 2 spin-off would focus on music from the 1950s, 60s and 70s in a bid to entice some of the station's former listeners back. On 10 April 2025 Ofcom provisionally indicated that it would reject these plans, saying the proposed station "would create a significant adverse impact on fair and effective competition" with "particular significance on the independent Boom Radio". and Ofcom confirmed on 2 July 2025 that the BBC would not be allowed to launch this station.
On 19 November 2024, Zoe Ball revealed that she would be stepping down from hosting the Breakfast Show on Friday 20 December 2024. It was announced that Scott Mills would be taking over as the new host in 2025. The new Scott Mills Breakfast Show launched on Monday 27 January, with Trevor Nelson taking over the station's afternoon slot on the same day.