Latest news about BBC Radio 2

Winners of BBC Radio 2 Young Choristers of the Year 2019 announced

Anna Haestrup from St Paul’s Girls School in London and William Miles-Kingston from St Peter’s School in York have been announced as the winners of the BBC Radio 2 Young Choristers of the Year 2019. The grand final took place at the BBC Philharmonic Studio at Media City UK, Salford. It was hosted by former Blue Peter presenter Radzi Chinyanganya and will broadcast in a special programme on Radio 2 at 6pm on 22 December. Anna is lead soprano at Saint Mary’s Church in Barnes and William sings in the St Peter’s Chapel Choir. Now in its 33rd year of broadcast, BBC Radio 2 Young Choristers of the Year celebrates...

Winners announced for the 2019 Audio Production Awards

The winners have been revealed for the Audio Production Awards at a gala evening at the BFI Southbank, hosted by Tommy Sandhu. The special Gold Award went to the Mental Health Minute, coordinated by Radiocentre and produced by Somethin’ Else in 2018 and TBI Media in 2019. The Mental Health Minute was broadcast in May across hundreds of radio stations, including BBC Radio 1, Radio 2 and 5 Live, BBC Local Radio, as well as networks including Global, Bauer and Wireless and community stations. It reached a combined audience of over 40 million people, and featured His Royal Highness The Duke of Cambridge...

BBC Radio 2 listeners raise £2,005,827 for Children In Need in 2019

BBC Radio 2 has so far raised an incredible £2,005,827 in aid of this year’s BBC Children in Need, with a range of fundraising events, competitions and - new for this year - an epic 24 hour karaoke challenge, completed by Radio 2 presenter, Rylan Clark-Neal. The Great Ka-RY-oke Challenge saw Rylan sing karaoke for 24 hours non-stop, from 9.15am on Tuesday 12 November to 9.15am on Wednesday 13 November and raise a staggering £1,086,261 for BBC Children in Need. Rylan belted out 236 classic karaoke numbers over the course of the day and...

BBC Radio 2 secures world exclusive first play of new George Michael song

On Wednesday 6 November, the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2 will broadcast the world exclusive first play of a new song from George Michael. The track, entitled This Is How, is from the soundtrack of the forthcoming film Last Christmas, a festive romantic comedy inspired by and featuring the music of George Michael and Wham!. Zoe Ball says: "I was, and am, a huge Wham! and George Michael fan and even though he is no longer with us, his music remains a joy to us all. I’m honoured to be premiering this previously unheard song from George on my breakfast show." ...

RAJAR Q3 2019: London and national brands round-up

Zoe Ball has lost another 364,000 listeners to her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show in the latest radio listening figures from RAJAR. It means more than a million weekly listeners have switched off since she took over the breakfast show from Chris Evans in January. In the period 24th June to 15th September 2019 (Q3/2019), Radio 2 breakfast had a weekly reach of 7.902m – that’s down from 8.266m in Q2 and 9.047m in Q1.While Zoe is still the presenter of the UK’s biggest breakfast show, the figures are the lowest for the slot in a decade – since...

BBC Radio 2 announces In Concert series for 2019

BBC Radio 2 announces the star-studded line-up for this year’s In Concert series. The five concerts will kick off with Stereophonics (Friday 1 November, 8pm). This will be followed by Jeff Lynne’s ELO (Thursday 7 November, 7pm), Craig David (Thursday 14 November, 7pm), Robbie Williams (Friday 29 November, 8pm) all from the BBC Radio Theatre in London. Dido will perform the final concert of the series (Monday 9 December, 7pm), from Maida Vale studios. The intimate performances will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 2...

BBC Radio 2’s Rylan Clark-Neal to sing for 24 hours

Presenter Rylan Clark-Neal will sing in a 24 hour non-stop karaoke extravaganza to raise money for BBC Children in Need 2019. The challenge will kick off on BBC Radio 2 at the end of the Zoe Ball Breakfast show at 9am on Tuesday 12 November, with Rylan singing karaoke classics through to 9am on Wednesday 13 November. The marathon sing-a-long will take place at the Radio 2 studios in Wogan House, London and be broadcast on BBC Radio 2 and BBC Sounds, and streamed live in vision on the BBC Red Button where viewers can watch Rylan and his guests perform.

David Lloyd releases new Radio Secrets book

A new insider’s guide to presenting and producing powerful content for broadcast and podcast has been written by David Lloyd. David has spent 35 years in radio, mostly in management, from LBC to Virgin, Century to Galaxy, Trent to Lincs FM, Free Radio to Gem 106 and BBC. He is now offering consultancy services and producing a weekly Radio Moments podcast and regular hour-long Conversations series with radio people who have made a difference. David tells RadioToday: “I wanted to write a new book which really fitted today’s"...

Bob Harris returns to BBC Radio 2 Country Show

Bob Harris will be back on BBC Radio 2 to host his country show from September 19th 2019. He announced in June that he’d be taking a few weeks off to recover from an aortic dissection, and a number of people have been covering the show ever since. In his first show back, he will be joined in session by guitarist and singer Molly Tuttle, who Bob hails as “one of the greatest performers in the world at this moment.” Bob Harris said: “I am so happy to be returning to Radio 2. Following my aortic dissection at the beginning of the summer the past few months have been amongst the toughest of my life, but I am now fit again and raring to go.

Record listening figures for Greg James and Dotty on Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra

Latest Rajar data (Q2 2019, 1 April - 23 June 2019) shows Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra have drawn in more listeners each week. BBC Radio 1 had a weekly reach of 10.56 million listeners aged 10+, an increase from 10.18m last quarter and 10.25m last year. BBC Radio 1Xtra also saw increases this quarter, with 1.17 million weekly listeners (10+) up on 1.13m last quarter and 1.11m last year. Highest number of listeners for Radio 1 Breakfast with Greg James as he adds a quarter of a million new listeners since he started last year...