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2010 in British radio

This is a list of events in British radio during 2010.

Events

January

  • 7 January – Jonathan Ross announces he will leave the BBC when his contract expires in July.
  • 11 January –
  • Chris Evans takes over as presenter of the Radio 2 breakfast show. The programme's launch also sees the return of newsreader Moira Stuart to the BBC after two years. Simon Mayo takes over the drivetime show.
  • Gaby Roslin takes over as host of the breakfast show alongside Paul Ross on BBC London 94.9.
  • 13 January – The BBC admits that it gave undue prominence to the band U2 in February 2009 after it repeatedly broadcast a “U2 = BBC” graphic and allowed presenters to claim the corporation was “part of launching” the group's latest album.
  • 15 January – N-Dubz singer Dappy and the BBC are forced to apologise after the rapper sent abusive text messages, which included death threats, to a woman who complained about him during an appearance on Radio 1's Chris Moyles Show on 12 January.
  • 17 January – Lynn Parsons returns to Radio 2 as a regular presenter with an early Sunday morning breakfast show. The show airs until April when the Radio 2 schedule is overhauled.

February

  • 12 February – Carrie Prideaux leaves BBC Radio 1 after hosting her last Newsbeat sports bulletins for The Chris Moyles Show.
  • 14 February – Sir Terry Wogan begins his weekly Sunday morning show on Radio 2. Weekend Wogan is hosted in front of a live audience in the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House with an initial run of three months.
  • 17 February – It is announced that the newspaper review show What the Papers Say, which was on television for many years, will be revived on BBC Radio 4, airing for 12 episodes in the run up to the 2010 general election and then returning on a permanent basis if it proves to be popular.
  • 18 February – Talksport obtains more Premier League football in the latest radio bidding wars. Whilst relinquishing their 15:00 package to football newcomers Absolute Radio, they win two packages from BBC Radio 5 Live and will take over the national radio rights to broadcast the late kick-off every Saturday evening from the Premier League (usually kicking off at 17:30), and the early Sunday games (before 15:00). This agreement covers the 2010–11 to 2012–13 Premier League seasons
  • 27 February – The six stations in the Smooth Radio network stage a "Starlight Supper", en event aimed at raising money for a number of charities: Breast Cancer Care in London, Macmillan Cancer Support in the Northwest, North East and West Midlands, the Rainbows Hospice for Children and Young People in the East Midlands and Marie Curie's Big Build in Glasgow.

March

  • 2 March – BBC Director General Mark Thompson confirms plans to close BBC 6 Music and the BBC Asian Network as part of a cost-cutting drive. The proposals will also see BBC Radio 7 rebranded as BBC Radio 4 Extra and cutbacks to the BBC website.
  • 10 March – The Official Chart Update is launched to give a midweek insight into the Official Singles Chart is shaping up. and is broadcast as a 30 minute mid-afternoon programme on Wednesdays.
  • 11 March – BBC Radio 2 confirms plans to overhaul its schedule from April. This will include moving two of its longest-running shows, Big Band Special and The Organist Entertains to different timeslots, and switching its comedy hour from Thursday to Saturday evenings – the second time it has done this in 12 months.
  • 24 March – The five radio stations owned by YMC Ltd (3TR FM, Bath FM, Brunel FM, Quay West 102.4/100.8 and Quay West 107.4) are closed by administrators after multiple refusals on the part of regulator Ofcom to transfer the licenses, following a number of financial issues at the stations after TLRC's sale.
  • 26 March – Les Ross presents his final breakfast show for Birmingham's Big City Radio.

April

  • 4 April – The timeslot for Bob Harris's Saturday evening/Sunday morning show on Radio 2 is moved forward an hour, meaning it airs from 12am until 3am instead of 11pm2am.
  • 5 April – Huddersfield station Pennine FM closes down at 6pm, having been on air in various guises since 1998 and the licence is handed back to Ofcom.
  • 15 April – Under new guidelines from Ofcom, from May commercial radio rivals will be allowed to co-locate to cut costs, and to slash local programming. The guidelines are a result of the recently passed Digital Economy Act.
  • 19 April – Amanda Bowman becomes presenter of a late night show syndicated across BBC Local Radio in the Midlands.
  • 30 April –
  • It is reported that Emma Forbes has quit as co-host of BBC Radio 2's Saturday night show Going Out with Alan Carr.
  • It is reported that Smooth and Real Radio have become the official broadcasters of the switch-on ceremony for the Blackpool Illuminations, after securing the broadcast rights from BBC Radio 2 which had aired it since 1997.

May

June

  • 21 June – Global Radio announces plans to reduce the number of its local Heart stations from 33 to 15 so-called "super stations" in a reorganisation that will lead to the loss of up to 200 full-time and freelance posts. The stations will have their own breakfast and drivetime shows, and local news bulletins, but all other output will come from London. A further two stations owned by Global will also be subsumed into the Heart network.
  • 25 June – BBC Radio 1 is criticised by the commercial radio trade body RadioCentre following a Harry Potter Day in which the station gave what RadioCentre calls “undue prominence” to the release of the film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
  • 29 June – Smooth Radio announces plans to merge its five stations based in England, creating a national network. The new station will be based in Manchester and will see the loss of 60 jobs at Smooth's other bases. A phased launch will begin on 4 October.
  • 30 June – Heart Solent replaces Heart Hampshire and Heart Dorset & New Forest.

July

August

September

  • 3 September –
  • BBC Radio 2 announces that Dawn Patrol presenter Sarah Kennedy is leaving the network after 17 years. By this time she has been absent from the show for several weeks, and will not return to the programme before the schedules are reorganised in October. Lynn Parsons acts as the show's stand-in presenter for its remaining time on air.
  • Heart East Anglia replaces Heart Norwich and Heart Ipswich.
  • 13 September – Global announce plans to scrap the Galaxy Network in order to create a nationwide Capital FM. The plans will also include the closure of four further stations, with the new network going live in early 2011.

October

November

December

  • 6 December – While presenting the Radio 4 Today programme, James Naughtie makes a slip of the tongue while referring to the British Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt that turns his surname into what the BBC later describes as "an offensive four-letter word". A little later in the day Andrew Marr uses the same word on Start the Week while talking about the incident and after declaring "we won't repeat the mistake".
  • 11 December – It is reported that David "Kid" Jensen is leaving his mid morning show at Gold to join Smooth Radio as an afternoon presenter. He will make his debut on the network in 2011.
  • 24 December – A Christmas message by Pope Benedict XVI is broadcast by BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day programme, the first time the Pontiff has addressed a Christmas message to one of the countries he has visited during the year.

Station debuts

Programme debuts

Continuing radio programmes

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

Ending this year

Closing this year

Deaths

  • 17 March – Charlie Gillett, 68, writer, broadcaster and musicologist

References