Latest news about BBC Radio 2

RAJAR Q4 2019: London and national brands round-up

Coverage of the general election helped 5 Live, Radio 4 and LBC each add half a million listeners across 2019. 5 Live is up from 4.9m to 5.4m in the Q4/2019 RAJAR listening figures, while Radio 4 has added a similar amount, rising from 10.4m a year ago to 10.9m now. LBC, including new digital station LBC News, posts a record high of 2.7m listeners (up more than half a million year on year), while talkRADIO is up more than 40% from 12 months ago to now have 433,000 listeners a week – another record high for the Wireless station...

Zoe Ball launches 500 Words live from Liverpool

Zoe Ball was live in Liverpool today to launch the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show competition 500 Words. The children’s short-story writing competition also celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, since it was first created and launched by Chris Evans in 2011. The live final will take place at Buckingham Palace on Friday 12 June and Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall once again returns as an Honorary Judge. The short-story writing competition for children aged five to 13 years old was declared open for entries by Zoe Ball this morning with a special outside broadcast of the Breakfast Show from Four Oaks Primary school in Liverpool where pupils joined her live on air...

Shortlist out for Audio and Radio Industry Awards 2020

The shortlist for this year’s Radio Academy’s ARIAs have been announced at an event at News UK headquarters in London. Presenters getting nominated include Chris Evans, Greg James, Stephen Nolan, Zoe Ball and Frank Skinner. Bauer leads the Commercial Radio nominees with just over two dozen, whilst we count that News UK has around 15. Global isn’t mentioned due to not submitting any entries once again this year. The rest of the shortlist includes newspapers, independent podcasts, independent producers and presenters, along with a few local radio stations including...

Opinion: RadioToday industry predictions for 2020

One thing is for sure – radio is changing at an incredible pace. Keeping up with emerging products and making full use of smart technology is key. But whilst the art of ‘input’ is changing, the ‘output’ has remained fairly static for many decades. Listeners can still hear a friendly voice on the radio at all hours of the day – the major difference is where the voice is located and when they were recorded. But let’s dig deeper down into the industry and see what 2020 might bring...

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...