2015 in British radio

This is a list of events in British radio during 2015.

List of years in British radio (table)
In British television
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
In British music
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
In British film
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018

Events

January
  • 1 January – BBC Radio 4 airs a 10-hour adaptation of Tolstoy's War and Peace written by Timberlake Wertenbaker.[1]
  • 5 January –
    • Magic launches nationally on Digital One, while all Magic Network AM stations in the north of England are rebranded as Bauer City 2.
    • Absolute Radio changes from broadcasting in stereo to mono to make way for Magic on DAB.[2]
  • 7 January – Ken Bruce celebrates 30 years as a presenter with BBC Radio 2.[3]
  • 9 January – UTV Media confirms that it is considering the sale of some of its UK radio stations.[4]
  • 12 January – Simon Bates begins presenting the breakfast show for BBC Radio Devon.[5] The programme is quickly criticised on social media for its lack of direction, while Deborah Vinton of the Plymouth Herald describes BBC Radio Devon's decision to employ Bates as a "huge and costly mistake".[6]
  • 19 January –
    • The Hits is split into a network of fresh-hits DAB stations in Bauer's heritage areas – Bauer City 3 – with split localised news, branding and advertising, and shared programme content. This programming also remains available nationally on Freeview under The Hits Radio name.[7] The Hits is removed from DAB in London and Birmingham, the Birmingham space going to Kisstory (then to KissFresh after Kisstory's move to Sound Digital in 2016).
    • Ofcom finds Kiss FM to have breached its regulations after it played an explicit version of Calvin Harris's "Open Wide" on an edition of its Kiss Official Top 40 in November 2014.[8]
  • 28 January – It is announced that Georgey Spanswick will take over the Friday edition of the BBC Local Radio evening programme from April as Mark Forrest reduces his number of weekly shows from five to four.[9]

February
  • 2 February –
  • 3 February – Ofcom announces that two bids have been received for the second national digital multiplex.[12]
  • 10 February – Radio Today reports that the RNIB have removed Insight Radio from Sky and Freesat in order to concentrate on its Freeview service. Absolute Radio 70s has replaced Insight Radio on Sky Channel 0188.[13]
  • 10 February – Making his debut on Radio 4's Just a Minute, actor David Tennant becomes the quiz show's most successful debut contestant after speaking about William Shakespeare's stage direction "Exit, Pursued by a Bear", for 60 seconds without once being interrupted.[14]
  • 15 February – It is announced that Zane Lowe will leave Radio 1 in March after twelve years with the network. Annie Mac will take over his weekday evening new music programme. Lowe's last show will be on 5 March.[15]
  • 18 February – Radio 1 denies banning Madonna's latest single "Living for Love" from the airwaves because of her age following complaints from listeners because the song was not added to the station's playlist.[16]
  • 19 February – BBC Radio Ulster announces a shake up of its schedule, which includes extending Cherrie McIlwaine's music show to five nights a week.[17]
  • 22 February – Victory, the first of two forgotten screenplays written by Harold Pinter that have been recorded for radio, is aired by Radio 4. The second play, The Dreaming Child, airs on 28 February.[18]
  • 24 February – A glitch at Heart Scotland allows listeners to hear a private conversation between breakfast presenters Robin Galloway and Adele Cunningham after their microphones remain live following the end of the show. The conversation includes expletives and a discussion about circumcision. The pair later apologise over the incident.[19]
  • 26 February – The Radio 1 Chart Show may be moved from Sunday to a different day of the week after the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry announced moves for Friday to become a worldwide day for the release of new music. Presently singles are released in the UK on Sundays and albums the following day.[20]
  • 27 February – Fearne Cotton announces she is to leave Radio 1 to start "a new chapter".[21]

March
  • 3 March – Several BBC local radio stations are launched on Freeview, with ten of the 40 local stations in England now broadcasting on the platform. They can be found on channels 719 to 722.[22]
  • 4 March –
    • Jazz FM celebrates its 25th anniversary with a series of clips from its archives.[23]
    • Radio 1 DJ Nihal criticises the station's diversity, and claims that "nothing has changed" at the BBC since its former Director-General Greg Dyke described it as "hideously white" in 2001.[24]
  • 12 March – Madonna criticises Radio 1's decision not to play her latest single as "discriminatory and unfair".[25]
  • 19 March – As part of BBC cost-cutting plans Radio 1 is to reduce the number of live music events it covers.[26]
  • 23 March – Police charge DJ Neil Fox with nine counts of sexual assault against six individuals, including three children.[27]
  • 24 March – Radio 1 announces that The Official Chart will move from Sundays to Friday afternoons from mid-July in response to changes in the day new music is released. There will also be a live television programme on the CBBC Channel.[28]
  • 27 March –
    • BBC Radio 2 newsreader and continuity announcer Alan Dedicoat presents his final bulletins for the network after 28 years. But although he is retiring from radio, Dedicoat will continue his work on television.[29]
    • The Sound Digital consortium, which includes UTV Media, wins the licence to launch the Digital Two network in 2016. UTV Media will launch four new stations on the platform.[30]
  • 31 March – Ofcom launches an investigation into Bauer Media and Absolute Radio for an alleged breach of its regulations, but no details of the incident are to be released until the investigation is complete.[31]

April
  • 2 April – Absolute 80s announces that it will begin airing classic charts from the 1980s in the 4.00–7.00pm Sunday slot vacated by Radio 1. The show, hosted by Martyn Lee, will begin in May.[32]
  • 5 April – BBC Radio 3 Controller Alan Davey announces plans to revive Pied Piper, the 1970s series that introduced young listeners to classical music.[33]
  • 15 April – Schedule changes at Radio 1 and BBC 1Xtra are announced for early June. They will see Adele Roberts presenting the Early Breakfast Show currently hosted by Gemma Cairney. Cairney will become the station's social action presenter, hosting The Surgery and documentaries for both networks.[34]
  • 28 April – Sandi Toksvig announces she is to step down as presenter of Radio 4's The News Quiz after nine years.[35] She subsequently announces that she decided to leave the programme in order to establish a new political party named the Women's Equality Party.[36]

May
  • 19 May – BBC Radio 2 presenter Chris Evans announces that Jeremy Clarkson will be a guest on the 21 May edition of his breakfast show, where the pair will discuss Clarkson's departure from Top Gear. The interview is Clarkson's first since leaving the programme.[37] During his subsequent appearance on the show, Clarkson describes the reason for his sacking from Top Gear as being "my own silly fault".[38]
  • 20 May – Ofcom clears Global Radio over a decision to advise its radio stations to drop reports about the HSBC tax controversy on the day the story broke. Reporting of the story was subsequently resumed some days later. The regulatory body finds that no third party was involved in influencing Global's decision.[39]
  • 21 May – Figures released by RAJAR indicate that BBC Radio 4 Extra has overtaken BBC 6 Music as the most listened digital only radio station, with 2.17 million tuning in weekly to BBC Radio 4 Extra compared to 2.06 million for BBC 6 Music.[40]
  • 22 May – Fearne Cotton presents her final show for BBC Radio 1 after ten years with the network.[41]
  • 23–24 – Radio 1's Big Weekend takes place at Norwich's Earlham Park. Acts appearing on stage include Taylor Swift, Muse, Fall Out Boy and the Foo Fighters.[42][43]

June
  • 3 June – Radio 4 presenter James Naughtie apologises after facing an online backlash because he referred to transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner in the male tense during a discussion on The Today Programme.[44]
  • 5 June – UTV Media agrees a £10 million deal to sell Liverpool's Juice FM to Global Radio.[45]
  • 8 June – Apple announce the launch of Apple Music, a service that will include Beats 1, a worldside radio station based in Britain and the United States, and headed by former Radio 1 presenter Zane Lowe.[46]
  • 11 June – It is confirmed that the Official Chart Show will move to Fridays from 10 July to coincide with the new weekly worldwide music release day. The programme, titled The Official Chart with Greg James, will air on Radio 1 at 4.00pm on Fridays.[47]
  • 28 June – Radio 4 will mark National Poetry Day on 8 October with a series of poems telling the story of Britain. We British: An Epic In Poetry will run throughout the day and see Andrew Marr, Dominic West and Fiona Shaw reading works by names such as Walter Raleigh, William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer and William Wordsworth.[48]
  • 29 June –
    • BBC Radio 4 announces the commissioning of Dead Girls Tell No Tales, a drama telling the behind-the-scenes story of a plotline from The Archers which saw the character Grace Archer killed in a fire.[49]
    • Miles Jupp is revealed as the new presenter of Radio 4's The News Quiz, succeeding Sandi Toksvig.[50]
  • 30 June – Launch of Apple's global radio station Beats 1.[51]

July
  • 4 July – Stephanie Hirst returns to radio to present a 90s show for BBC Radio Manchester.
  • 5 July – The final Sunday broadcast of Radio 1's Official UK Chart Show.[52]
  • 7 July –
  • 9 July – Nick Robinson is to step down from the role of BBC News's political editor in order to succeed James Naughtie as presenter of BBC Radio 4's Today programme. He will also report on news and current affairs for radio and television.[55]
  • 10 July – The first Friday broadcast of Radio 1's Official UK Chart Show.[56]
  • 14 July – BBC radio programmes will be made available for download to smartphones and tablets for the first time within days.[57]
  • 31 July – The first of ten multiplexes trialling small-scale DAB multiplexes launches in Brighton. Each multiplex is initially licensed for nine months but the trial periods are later extended and the multiplexes are now licensed until March 2020.

August
  • 6 August – Official figures released by RAJAR indicate that Nick Grimshaw's breakfast show has increased its audience in the second quarter of 2015, up from 5.5 million to 5.84 million. Figures for the first quarter were the lowest for the programme since Grimshaw succeeded Chris Moyles.[58]
  • 12 August – The National Union of Journalists announce that staff at the BBC Asian Network are to stage a one-day strike on 19 August in protest at planned cuts to the service.[59]
  • 13 August –
    • BBC Radio Solent presenter Alex Dyke is suspended after he told listeners during a phone in the previous day that breastfeeding in public was “unnatural” and “must be stopped”.[60]
    • Labour Party London mayoral hopeful and practising Muslim Sadiq Khan criticises the talk radio station LBC for the way it reported the findings of a YouGov poll that asked whether Londoners would be comfortable with the idea of a Muslim mayor.[61] Another Labour potential candidate, Christian Wolmar, criticises the station after he and another candidate hopeful were excluded from an on-air hustings meeting.[62]

September
  • 7 September –
  • 13 September – Ahead of the relaunch of XFM as Radio X, Global hands back the Paisley licence, on which it had broadcast XFM Scotland, to Ofcom when the regulator refused Global's request to network 24/7 from London.
  • 21 September – Chris Moyles returns to radio to present a breakfast show for Radio X to co-inside with the relaunch of XFM as Radio X.[65][66]

October

November
  • 12–15 November – BBC Radio 3 joins with commercial station Jazz FM to operate a four-day pop-up station called BBC Music Jazz. [70]

December
  • 3 December – The last of the ten multiplexes trialling small-scale DAB multiplexes launches in Glasgow.
  • 7 December – Liverpool stations Radio City 2 and Radio City Talk swap wavebands. City 2 moves from AM to FM with City Talk going in the opposite direction.[71]
  • 16 December – James Naughtie presents the Today programme for the final time after 21 years to become a special correspondent.

Station debuts
  • December – The VIP Lounge[72]

Closing this year
DateStationDebut(s)
11 February Radio Hafren 1993
19 October Time 106.6 1993

Programme debuts

Changes of network affiliation
Show Moved from Moved to
The Chris Moyles Show BBC Radio 1 Radio X

Returning this year after a break of one year or longer

Continuing radio programmes

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

Ending this year

Deaths
gollark: Also, it has weird special casing with comparison operators: `5 <= x <= 10` is actually valid and does what you might expect if you were a MATHS PERSON.
gollark: Oh, and the way everything is mutable by default can cause badness.
gollark: Plus !!referential transparency!!.
gollark: `is` is terrible and confusing because it's object identity and will *appear* to work sometimes when it's wrong.
gollark: It would be easier and more consistent to just do `not (whatever in whatever)`.

References
  1. Harding, Luke (31 December 2014). "War and Peace on Radio 4: a ripping adaptation to grip a hungover nation". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  2. Martin, Roy (5 January 2015). "Bauer puts Magic on D1, puts Absolute in mono". Radio Today. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  3. Martin, Roy (7 January 2015). "Ken Bruce gets surprise phone call from himself". Radio Today. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  4. Plunkett, John (9 January 2015). "TalkSport owner UTV eyes up sale of local radio stations in England". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  5. "BBC Radio Devon announces Simon Bates as new Breakfast presenter from 12 January". BBC Media Centre. BBC. 2 December 2014. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  6. Vinton, Deborah (15 January 2015). "Simon Bates on BBC Radio Devon is rubbish, says Deborah Vinton, Ivybridge". Plymouth Herald. Local World. Archived from the original on 18 January 2015. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  7. Bauer City Network 3 launches on local DAB Radio Today, 19 January 2015
  8. "Calvin Harris song breaches Ofcom rules". BBC News. BBC. 19 January 2015. Retrieved 19 January 2015.
  9. Martin, Roy (28 January 2015). "Mark Forrest drops to four nights on BBC locals". Radio Today. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
  10. "Radio 1 rapped for Foo Fighters swearing". BBC News. BBC. 2 February 2015. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  11. Martin, Roy (2 February 2015). "Radio station banned from football matches". Radio Today. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  12. Martin, Roy (3 February 2015). "Digital Two applications published by Ofcom". Radio Today. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  13. Martin, Roy (10 February 2015). "Insight Radio removed from Sky & Freesat". Radio Today. Retrieved 10 February 2015.
  14. "David Tennant makes Radio 4 Just a Minute record". BBC News. BBC. 10 February 2015. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
  15. "Zane Lowe to leave Radio 1 in March". BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat. BBC. 15 February 2015. Retrieved 15 February 2015.
  16. Izundu, Chi Chi (18 February 2015). "Is Madonna really banned from the BBC Radio 1 playlist?". BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat. BBC. Retrieved 18 February 2015.
  17. "More Cherrie McIlwaine at BBC Radio Ulster". Radio Today. 19 February 2015. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
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  19. Martin, Roy (27 February 2015). "Robin and Adele say sorry for swearing incident". Radio Today. Retrieved 27 February 2015.
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  29. Martin, Roy (24 March 2015). "Newsreader Alan Dedicoat to exit BBC Radio 2". Radio Today. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  30. O'Donoghue, Paul (27 March 2015). "RTE loses out to UTV in UK digital radio bid". The Irish Independent. Independent News and Media. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
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  32. Martin, Roy (2 April 2015). "Absolute 80s to introduce Sunday night chart". Radio Today. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
  33. "Radio 3 boss to recreate Pied Piper series". BBC News. BBC. 5 April 2015. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
  34. Eames, Tom (15 April 2015). "Ex-Big Brother star Adele Roberts to host early breakfast show on BBC Radio 1". Digital Spy. Retrieved 16 April 2015.
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  39. Plunkett, John (20 May 2015). "Capital and LBC owner Global Radio advised stations to drop HSBC story". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
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  42. "Norwich, get ready for Radio 1's Big Weekend". BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat. BBC. 23 May 2015. Retrieved 23 May 2015.
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  44. "BBC's James Naughtie apologises for calling Caitlyn Jenner 'he'". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. 3 June 2015. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
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  49. "Radio drama to focus on Archers fire". BBC News. BBC. 29 June 2015. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
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  52. "Lionel Richie storms album chart". BBC News. BBC. 5 July 2015. Retrieved 5 July 2015.
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  56. "Ed Sheeran and David Zowie top UK's first Friday pop charts". BBC News. BBC. 10 July 2015. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
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  58. Sweney, Mark (6 August 2015). "BBC Radio 1 claws back listeners as Nick Grimshaw recovers from breakfast low". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
  59. Rawlinson, Kevin (12 August 2015). "BBC Asian Network staff to strike". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
  60. Jackson, Jasper (13 August 2015). "BBC suspends DJ who said breastfeeding in public 'must stop'". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
  61. Sparrow, Andrew (13 August 2015). "Sadiq Khan blasts LBC for suggesting half would not back Muslim mayor". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
  62. Jackson, Jasper (13 August 2015). "Christian Wolmar attacks LBC for excluding him from mayoral hustings". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
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  64. Absolute Radio to replace Planet Rock on FM in the West Midlands
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  67. "Alan Bennett and Alec Baldwin among Radio 3 highlights". BBC News. BBC. 1 October 2015. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
  68. BBC plans to expand 5 Live Sports Extra get second red card
  69. "Andrew Marr to tell Britain's history via poetry on Radio 4". BBC News. BBC. 28 June 2015. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
  70. BBC Radio to launch temporary Jazz Pop-up digital radio station with Jazz FM and The EFG London Jazz Festival
  71. Simon Ross moves to Radio City 2 Breakfast, RadioToday, 30 November 2015
  72. "Blind man's radio station to help others". Oxford Mail. Newsquest. 25 October 2015. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
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  75. "Veteran scottish broadcaster Ray Daniels dies". Radio Today. 13 August 2015. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
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