Latest news about BBC Radio 1

RAJAR Q2 2019: London and national brands round-up

Zoe Ball has lost more than three quarters of a million listeners to her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show, according to the latest audience research from RAJAR. The show’s reach is down 781,000 quarter-on-quarter to 8.266m for the three months survey period up to the 23rd June 2019. In Q1/19 she had 9.047m listeners; in Q2/2018 Chris Evans reached 9.038m. Radio 2’s audience at breakfast is now the lowest its been since Q3/2010, when Evans was fairly new in the job.

Arielle Free to host weekend early breakfast at Radio 1

DJ and TV presenter Arielle Free is joining BBC Radio 1 permanently to host weekend early breakfast show starting on Friday 6th September. The show is brand new to BBC Radio 1 and will air before weekend breakfast with Matt and Mollie from Friday to Sunday. Adele Roberts will host the show Mondays to Thursdays. Arielle, who also presents podcast Love Island: The Morning After and Scrambled! on CITV as well as previously fronting BBC Scotland coverage of T in the Park. She has previously covered Early Breakfast and Radio 1’s Dance Anthems...

Here’s how BBC Radio 1 played #HideAndSeek

BBC Radio 1’s latest game of Hide And Seek latest over 24 hours, with Greg James and Nick Grimshaw being found in Weston-super-Mere on Wednesday. Breakfast co-producer Chris Sawyer has tweeted an insightful thread about how it all came about, including information on how Greg put the answer to the question “Where are they” under the studio desk before he left on Tuesday morning. He explains about fake train tickets, pre-planned billboards, driving along a pier and planes flying too high.

The Hide and Seek game is back at BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1 is playing another game of Hide and Seek with its listeners starting on Tuesday afternoon. Greg James, Nick Grimshaw, Maya Jama and Jordan North were all taken away from the studio around 8am, leaving Scott Mills and Adele Roberts in the studio to continue hosting the breakfast show, along with Clara Amfo. The station says Greg and Grimmy are on their way to a hiding place but the eventual place will not be hospitals, fire stations, police stations, or anywhere they’d cause a nuisance...

Phil Williams returns with a week on talkRADIO

Former BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Phil Williams has been hired by talkRADIO to host Drive for a week. He’ll be on-air Monday 22nd July to Thursday 25th July from 4pm till 7pm, covering for Eamonn Holmes. His colleague, and talkRADIO breakfast presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer tweeted that he’ll also be live from College Green on Tuesday and Wednesday. Phil left 5 Live in May after 18 years, where he presented the Late Show since 2013. Before 5 Live, Phil worked at BBC Radio 1, GMR in Manchester and XFM London.

BBC Radio 1 returns to Ibiza for 24th year

BBC Radio 1 presenters Annie Mac and Danny Howard will present a night of back to back sets from some big DJ names next month in Ibiza including David Guetta and Idris Elba. The station is celebrating 24 years of creating special events on the island on Friday 2nd August 2019. Joining Radio 1 on Friday night will be some performances from CamelPhat, David Guetta x Jack Back, Idris Elba, Kölsch, Krystal Klear, Monki, Paul Woolford and Rebüke Solardo.

Young ARIAs to become Young Audio Awards in 2020

Radiocentre and the BBC have announced plans for next year’s radio industry awards for those aged 8 to 18, with a slight change of name for 2020. The Young Audio Awards will take place in March 2020, following the success of the first ‘Young ARIAs’ at the BBC Radio Theatre in May this year. The awards are aimed at children involved in radio, podcasts or audio projects, with ‘money can’t buy’ prizes on offer including industry mentorship, VIP studio tours and a show on a national radio station. Entries for the 2020 awards will open in November 2019.

BBC Radio 1 to air new chart programme on Sunday afternoons

A new show, The Official Chart: First Look, is being introduced to BBC Radio 1 in the historic Sunday afternoon chart countdown slot. The programme will be live from the BBC in Salford and produced by MediaCityUK-based indie Audio Always, each Sunday from 6pm till 7pm. The Official Chart: First Look will launch on July 14th hosted by Cel Spellman and Katie Thistleton, focussing on the Top 20 biggest tracks from data collected on Friday and Saturday, with the Top 10 played in full.

BBC Radio 1 announces The Lewis Capaldi Symphony

BBC Radio 1’s Clara Amfo announced that Lewis Capaldi is set to perform alongside the Manchester Camerata Orchestra as part of Radio 1 Presents: The Lewis Capaldi Symphony on Monday 5 August in Croxteth, Liverpool. The Scottish singer-songwriter is one of the biggest UK artists to emerge in the last year with his single Someone You Loved spending seven weeks at number one and recently being named biggest song of 2019 so far, whilst his debut album Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent sat at the top of the album charts for four weeks.

Zoe Ball joins top earners list at the BBC

New BBC Radio 2 breakfast show host Zoe Ball has joined the BBC big earners top 10 list whilst Jeremy Vine took at £110k pay cut. Vanessa Feltz also makes it inside the top 10 list, which this year includes three women for the first time, along with Claudia Winkleman. Chris Evans is still in the list, as it covers the period from April 2018 to March 2019, so will only represent nine months of work. He got £1.25m for 150 editions of the Breakfast Show (or £8.3k per programme).