Studios[edit]

Yalding House, the home of Radio 1 1996-2012

BBC Radio 1 now broadcasts from Broadcasting House, London

From inception for over 20 years, Radio 1 broadcast from an adjacent pair of continuity
suites (originally Con A and Con B) in the main control room of Broadcasting House.
These cons were configured to allow DJs to operate the equipment themselves and play
their own records and jingle cartridges (called self-op). This was a departure from
traditional BBC practice, where a studio manager would play in discs from the studio
control cubicle. Due to needle time restrictions, much of the music was played from tapes
of BBC session recordings. The DJs were assisted by one or more technical operators
(TOs) who would set up tapes and control sound levels during broadcasts.
In 1985, Radio 1 moved across the road from Broadcasting House to Egton House. The
station moved to Yalding House in 1996, and Egton House was demolished in 2003 to
make way for extension to Broadcasting House. This extension would eventually be
renamed the Egton Wing, and then the Peel Wing.
Until recently, the studios were located in the basement of Yalding House (near to BBC
Broadcasting House) which is on Great Portland Street in central London. They used to
broadcast from two main studios in the basement; Y2 and Y3 (there is also a smaller
studio, YP1, used mainly for production). These two main studios (Y2 and Y3) are
separated by the "Live Lounge", although it is mainly used as an office; there are rarely
live sets recorded from it, as Maida Vale Studios is used instead for larger set-ups. The
studios are linked by webcams and windows through the "Live Lounge", allowing DJs to
see each other when changing between shows. Y2 is the studio from where The Chris
Moyles Show was broadcast and is also the studio rigged with static cameras for when
the station broadcasts on the "Live Cam". The station moved there in 1996 from Egton
House.
In December 2012, Radio 1 moved from Yalding House to new studios on the 8th floor of
the new BBC Broadcasting House, Portland Place, just a few metres away from the "Peel
Wing", formerly the "Egton Wing", which occupies the land on which Egton House
previously stood: it was renamed the "Peel Wing" in 2012 in honour of the long-serving
BBC Radio 1 presenter, John Peel, who broadcast on the station from its launch in 1967
up until his death in 2004.
Programmes have also regularly been broadcast from other regions, notably The Mark
and Lard Show, broadcast every weekday from New Broadcasting House, Oxford
Road, Manchester for over a decade (October 1993 – March 2004) – the longest regular
broadcast on the network from outside the capital.

UK analogue frequencies[edit]
Radio 1 originally broadcast on 1215 kHz AM (or 247 metres). On 23 November 1978,
the station was moved to 1053 kHz and 1089 kHz (275 and 285 m), but did not begin
broadcasting on its own FM frequencies until late 1987. The BBC had been allocated
three FM frequency ranges in 1955, for the then Light Programme (now BBC Radio
2), Third Programme (now BBC Radio 3) and Home Service (now BBC Radio 4) stations.
Thus when Radio 1 was launched, there was no FM frequency range allocated for the
station, the official reason being that there was no space, even though no commercial
stations had yet been launched on FM. Because of this, from launch until the end of the
1980s Radio 1 was allowed to take over Radio 2's FM transmitters for a few hours per
week. These were Saturday afternoons, Sunday teatime and evening – most notably for
the Top 40 Singles Chart on Sunday afternoons; 10 pm to midnight on weeknights
including Sounds of the Seventies until 1975, and thereafter the John Peel show (Mon–
Thurs) and the Friday Rock Show; and most Bank Holiday afternoons, when Radio 2 was
broadcasting a Bank Holiday edition of Sport on 2.
The first full-time FM broadcast began in the London area on 31 October 1987, at low
power on 104.8 MHz.[67] A year later the FM frequencies became national after the police
communication allocation changed, freeing up what is known today as 97–99 FM, which
the BBC acquired. The rollout of Radio 1 on FM began on 1 September 1988, starting
with Central Scotland, the Midlands and the north of England. A month later, to coincide
with an extension of broadcast hours, Radio 1 stopped broadcasting on Radio 2's FM
frequencies on weeknights and on Sunday evenings and by 1990 all usage of Radio 2's
FM frequencies had ended. Radio 1 made great efforts to promote its new FM service,
renaming itself on-air initially to 'Radio 1 FM' and later as '1FM' until 1995. The
engineering programme was initially completed in 1995.
The Conservative government decided to increase competition on AM and disallowed the
simulcasting of services on both AM and FM, affecting both BBC and Independent Local
Radio. Radio 1's medium wave frequencies were reallocated to Independent National
Radio. Radio 1's last broadcast on MW was on 1 July 1994, with Stephen Duffy's "Kiss
Me" being the last record played on MW just before 9 am. For those who continued to
listen, just after 9 am, Radio 1 jingles were played in reverse chronological order ending
with its first jingle from 30 September 1967. In the initial months after this closure a pre-
recorded message with Mark Goodier was played to warn listeners that Radio 1 was now
an "FM-only" station.[68] Around this time, Radio 1 began broadcasting on spare audio
subcarriers on Sky Television's analogue satellite service, initially in mono (on UK Gold)
and later in stereo (on UK Living).

Digital distribution[edit]
The BBC launched its national radio stations on DAB digital radio in 1995, however the
technology was expensive at the time and so was not marketed, instead used as a test
for future technologies. DAB was "officially" launched in 2002 as sets became cheaper.
Today it can also be heard on UK digital TV services Freeview, Virgin Media, Sky and the
Internet as well as FM. In July 2005, Sirius Satellite Radio began simulcasting Radio 1
across the United States as channel 11 on its own service and channel 6011 on Dish
Network satellite TV. Sirius Canada began simulcasting Radio 1 when it was launched on
1 December 2005 (also on channel 11). The Sirius simulcasts were time shifted five
hours to allow US and Canadian listeners in the Eastern Time Zone to hear Radio 1 at
the same time of day as UK listeners. On 12 November 2008, Radio 1 made its debut on
XM Satellite Radio in both the US and Canada on channel 29, [citation needed] moving to XM 15
and Sirius 15 on 4 May 2011.[69][70] Until the full station was removed in August 2011,
Radio 1 was able to be heard by approximately 20.6 million listeners in North America on
satellite radio alone. BBC Radio 1 can be heard on cable in the Netherlands at 105.10
FM.

SiriusXM cancellation in North America[edit]

At midnight on 9 August 2011, Sirius XM ceased carrying BBC Radio 1 programming
with no prior warning. On 10 August 2011 the BBC issued the following statement:
The BBC’s commercial arm BBC Worldwide has been in partnership with SIRIUS
Satellite Radio to broadcast Radio 1 on their main network, since 2005. This agreement
has now unfortunately come to an end and BBC Worldwide are in current discussions
with the satellite radio station to find ways to continue to bring popular music channel,
BBC Radio 1, to the US audience. We will keep you posted. [71]
Thousands of angry Sirius XM customers began a campaign on Facebook and other
social media to reinstate BBC Radio 1 on Sirius XM Radio. [72] One week later, Sirius and
the BBC agreed on a new carriage agreement [73] that saw Radio 1 broadcast on a time-
shifted format on the Sirius XM Internet Radio platform only, on channel 815.
Starting on 15 January 2012, The Official Chart Show began broadcasting on
SiriusXM 20on20 channel 3, at 4 pm and 9 pm Eastern Standard Time.[74]
On 19 August 2014, SiriusXM again stopped carrying BBC Radio 1 programming with no
advanced notice. The stream is no longer available on the Internet Radio platform. [citation
needed]

Regionalisation[edit]
From 1999 until 2012, Radio 1 split the home nations for localised programming in
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, to allow the broadcast of a showcase programme
for regional talent. Most recently, these shows were under the BBC Introducing brand.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had their own shows, which were broadcast on a
3-week rotational basis in England.
From January 2011 until June 2012, Scotland's show was presented by Ally McCrae.
[75]
 Previously it was hosted by Vic Galloway (who also presents for BBC Radio Scotland);
who had presented the show solo since 2004, after his original co-host Gill Mills
departed.
Wales's show was hosted by Jen Long between January 2011 until May 2012.
[76]
 Previously Bethan Elfyn occupied the slot, who had at one time hosted alongside Huw
Stephens,[77] until Stephens left to join the national network, although he still broadcasts a
show for Wales – a Welsh-language music show on BBC Radio Cymru on Thursday
evenings.
Phil Taggart presented the Northern Ireland programme between November 2011 and
May 2012. The show was formerly presented by Rory McConnell. Before joining the
national network, Colin Murray was a presenter on The Session in Northern Ireland,
along with Donna Legge;[77][78] after Murray's promotion to the network Legge hosted alone
for a time, and on her departure McConnell took her place.
The regional opt-outs originally went out from 8 pm to 10 pm on Thursdays (the Evening
Session's time slot) and were known as the "Session in the Nations" (the "Session" tag
was later dropped due to the demise of the Evening Session); they later moved to run
from 7:30 pm to 9 pm, with the first half-hour of Zane Lowe's programme going out
across the whole of the UK. On 18 October 2007 the regional programmes moved to a
Wednesday night/Thursday morning slot from midnight to 2 am under the BBC
Introducing banner, allowing Lowe's Thursday show to be aired across the network; prior
to this change Huw Stephens had presented the Wednesday midnight show nationally. In
January 2011, BBC Introducing was moved to the new time slot of midnight to 2 am on
Monday mornings, and the Scottish and Welsh shows were given new presenters in the
form of Ally McCrae and Jen Long.
The opt-outs were only available to listeners on the FM frequencies. Because of the way
the DAB and digital TV services of Radio 1 are broadcast (a single-frequency network on
DAB and a single broadcast feed of Radio 1 on TV platforms), the digital version of the
station was not regionalised.
The BBC Trust announced in May 2012 that the regional music programmes on Radio 1
would be replaced with a single programme offering a UK-wide platform for new music as
part of a series of cost-cutting measures across the BBC.[79] In June 2012, the regional
shows ended and were replaced by a single BBC Introducing show presented by Jen
Long and Ally McCrae.[80]