Latest news about BBC Radio 2

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...

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.

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.

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).

Tom Odell to host new four-part series on BBC Radio 2

BBC Radio 2 has hired singer/songwriter Tom Odell to host a four-part series on BBC Radio 2. Produced by Wisebuddah, Around The Piano with Tom Odell sees Tom celebrate the role of the piano in shaping pop music over the last 60 years. During the four programmes, Tom takes the audience on a journey through the world’s most iconic piano-driven tracks – from Jerry Lee Lewis to Kanye West and Nina Simone to Harry Styles.

BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show’s 500 Words 2019 winners are revealed at Windsor Castle

The six winners of this year’s BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show’s 500 Words children’s writing competition were announced today during a live broadcast from Windsor Castle. The final was attended by Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall who is an Honorary Judge and delivered a speech to the audience and met all the winners. The Bronze, Silver and Gold winning stories across the two age categories (5-9 years and 10-13 years) were read out by Hugh Bonneville, Konnie Huq, Helen McCrory OBE, Michael Sheen OBE, Sandi Toksvig OBE and David Walliams OBE. The event was attended Chris Evans, who created and launched 500 Words in 2011 and is Chair of the judging panel...