Radio 1 at 50 - Part 4 It's 1FM

September 1992 and marking a quarter of a century on air Radio 1 faces the end of an era - though little did we know it at the time. A year later DLT had gone. So had Bates, Bob Harris and Fluff. Beerling was out. Bannister was in. Still, the station was in celebratory mood and it would be the last time it would widely acknowledge its heritage until its 40th some 15 years later. 

So how did Radio 1 sound on its 25th birthday on 30 September 1992? Fortunately I recorded some chunks of that day's broadcasts. 

The main event was The Birthday Train, yet another excuse to get Simon Bates out of the studio. In this case it was on a train making its way from Edinburgh to London where it was to be officially named by Catherine Zeta Jones no less as 'BBC Radio 1FM'. 

Musically it's not a typical day - Cliff Richard and Sandie Shaw are amongst the artists on Bruno Brookes' playlist. From this week Radio 1 was renamed 1FM - a short-lived affectation - and there was the new Closer to the Music jingle package.

In this first sequence its Bruno and then Simon Mayo with the Breakfast Crew (Diane Oxberry and Rod McKenzie) with occasional link-ups with Bates. The its over to Simes on the train for part of The Golden Hour. (Does anyone have a copy of Vince Clarke's version of Theme One?) The 1FM Express was 45 minutes late into King's Cross - apparently a careless JCB driver cut through a signalling cable - so Jakki Brambles is late on air broadcasting from the Roof Gardens in Kensington. With Jakki is station controller Johnny Beerling, Tony Hadley, Midge Ure, Smiley Miley, Neil Arthur (ex-Blancmange) and Boy George. (All credit to Peter Powell as Tony, Neil and Boy George all mention him playing their records and encouraging them).       

This second sequence comprises the best bits of "the winning team" billed as Steve Wright So Far with some old sketches including Mr Angry from Purley, Laura's Second Love, John Bowles, Gervaise, Llama Man and Linda Lust plus archive clips of guests John Mayor, John Smith, Mel Gibson, Clive Anderson, Sylvester Stallone, Smashie and Nicey, Dame Edna Everage, Spike Milligan, Richard and Judy, Bruce Forsyth, Steven Wright, Phil Cornwell and Danny Baker.

In the third and final sequence from 30 September 1992 its Mark Goodier, first with Mega Hits, "the Top 10 you choose every day" and then after News 92 in comes the Evening Session. The Session includes current chart acts covering some of the biggest number ones of the last 25 years: The Wonder Stuff's version of Slade's Coz I Love You, Kingmaker's Lady Madonna, Blur's Maggie May, Boy George's My Sweet Lord, The Frank and Walters cover of I'm a Believer and, bizarely, Ned's Atomic Dustbin with Charlene's I've Never Been to Me. There's also The Mission with their version of Atomic, Billy Bragg with When Will I See You Again?, Carter USM's cover of Another Brick in the Wall, The Farm with Don't You Want Me? and Manic Street Preachers with Suicide is Painless. All these tracks were later released on the NME album Ruby Trax.   

For whatever reason I didn't record the Man Ezeke so we move onto "the man with musical plan" Nicholas Andrew Argyle Campbell. Nicky plays a selection of number hit singles and album tracks from 1967 onwards - my recording ends in 1977 with Way Down. Finally, to round off the day part of Bob Harris's classy overnight show.   

Prince Encore

Prince was on the last day of his Act II tour of Europe when he appeared on BBC Radio 1 for a 'secret' show in the Broadcasting House Concert Hall. His 20 minute performance was part of that morning's Simon Bates show. The concert itself has been repeated on 6 Music and copies can be found online.

When Prince unexpectedly died in April I didn't realise I had my own recording of the one-off concert. However, I chanced upon the tape the other day when I was rummaging for some other archive material. As well as Prince's performance the tape contains the rest of Simon's show between 11.30 and 12.30; the concert started around noon.

So here for the first time in 23 years, since it aired on 7 September 1993, is Prince's energetic live set in context complete with a pleased-as-punch Simon Bates.   

A quick confession: my C90 did its tape turn bang in the middle of the set so I've spliced in that particular song from another source.

Footnote: the tape I was looking for, somewhat incongruously, was for a Victor Silvester programme, which I didn't, as it turned out, possess anyway. 

Live Aid

"It's twelve noon in London, 7 am in Philadelphia and around the world it's time for Live Aid. Sixteen hours of live music in aid of famine relief in Africa".

Richard Skinner's opening announcement thirty years ago today launched the start of an unforgettable day for the "global jukebox" that was Live Aid. In this edited version of a Radio 1 documentary those involved in performing at the concert and those working behind the scenes on the mammoth broadcast operation recall that day, Saturday 13 July 1984.

Live Aid-One Year On: One Day That Shook the World is introduced by Simon Bates and features the voices of Bob Geldof, Stuart Grundy, Dave Atkey, John Keeble, Elvis Costello, Sting, Howard Jones, Michael Appleton, Chris Lycett and Elton John. It was produced by Roger Lewis and aired on Saturday 13 July 1986.

Tagged on the end of the recording are some of the Live Aid jingles produced by JAM Creative Productions. 

Sunday Times illustrations by Mick Austin

All Talk

Talk Radio, the UK’s third commercial radio station, officially launched on this day in 1995. Its programme director Jeremy Scott promised a “provocative, opinionated and confrontational approach”, though listeners may have heard little of that in the opening offering from Sean Bolger and Samantha Meah. Perhaps it was all a little too early in the morning.

The third national licence, following the award of the first two to Classic FM and Virgin, had been advertised in November 1993 as a “predominantly speech” station, which the Radio Authority deemed to be 51% in any three hours. Six bids were received with Talk Radio offering an aggressive £3.82m.  Others in the running were Newstalk UK £2.75m, Apollo Radio £2.27m, LBC £2m, First National Entertainment Radio £1.54m and Jim Black Broadcasting with £1.04m.Talk Radio’s bid had the backing of the US group Emmis Broadcasting who ran radio stations in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, plus Australian based Prime Television and Hambro Bank.   

The launch line-up included a number of well-known radio (and TV) voices such as Scott Chisholm, Vanessa Feltz, Anna Raeburn, Terry Christian, Jeremy Beadle, Tommy Boyd, Dr David Starkey and Kiss FM ‘shock jock’ Caesar the Geezer. But MD John Aumonier promised that the shock jock tactics so beloved of US talk radio and employed by the likes of Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh would not be part of his station’s output. “Number one, the market does not want it. Two the regulatory authority would not allow it.” However he did promise to shake up the cosy image of speech radio in the UK and that the station’s style would be “profoundly shocking” but not offensive. 

This is a short clip taken from a test transmission on 12 February 1995.

Though the official launch date was given as Valentine’s Day 1995, the station snuck in early on the evening of the 13th with a three-hour show from Caesar the Geezer at 10 pm. and then an hour of Wild Al Kelly. From 2 am Talk Radio resumed test transmissions until the 6 am official launch.

Providing the tongue-in check quasi-BBC announcements was actor Jonathan Kydd - Talk Radio was transmitting on what had been Radio 1’s medium wave frequencies – over Graham de Wilde’s KPM library music composition The Unknown Warrior. The opening news bulletin was read by Sophie Decker, if memory serves she’d previously been part of Radio 1’s Newsbeat team, before leading into The Dish with Bolger and Meah, a show described as “unremittingly dreadful” by the Daily Telegraph’s Gillian Reynolds.

Later that day, at 7pm, the station offered The Rude Awakening with Carol McGiffin and Moz Dee, That programme title – and Talk Radio loved its programme titles in the early days – was a little misleading for an evening show. The reason stems from an eleventh-hour change of heart when test runs of the breakfast show with McGiffin and Dee proved just too rude and just three days before launch it was swapped with Bolger and Meah’s show.  

Here’s Talk Radio’s launch programme schedule:

Monday-Friday
0100 Wild Al Kelly & Mike Hanson
0600 The Dish with Samantha Meah and Sean Bolger
1000 UK Today with Scott Chisholm
1300 Anna Raeburn
1500 Boyd Up with Tommy Boyd
1900 The Rude Awakening with Carol McGiffin and Maurice Dee
2200 Caesar The Geezer

Saturday
0100 Something For The Weekend with Nick Miller
0600 Maurice Dee
1000 Dr. David Starkey
1300 Sound Advice with Gary Jacobs
1500 Books People Read with David Freeman
1700 World's Biggest Quiz with Dale Winton
1900 Janet's Planet with Janet Gershlick
2200 The Other Side with Ronnie Barbour

Sunday
0100 Something For The Weekend with Nick Miller
0600 Dangerous Dan Erlich
1000 She'll Be Wearing Pink Pyjamas with Vanessa Feltz
1300 Nancy Roberts
1500 Success with Sue Plumtree
1600 Gary Newbon
1900 Terry Christian
2200 Jeremy Beadle

One name missing from the line-up but at the time already floated as a possible recruit was Steve Wright. Speaking to the Radio Times his agent Jo Gurnett denied this: “Steve has no plans to join Talk Radio”. But he’d resigned from Radio 1 just 2 or 3 weeks earlier and had, it transpired, spent four months negotiating with the station. Steve joined nine months later.



Talk Radio UK faced a turbulent first year on air. A failure to draw in sufficient advertisers compounded with the large licence bid led to considerable losses and an early management shake-up. On air the shock jock tactics of certain DJs – fifteen complaints were upheld by the Radio Authority in the first three weeks alone - meant a number had been dropped by the end of the year. First to be yanked off the air was Wild Al Kelly, his co-presenter Mike Hanson talking to the Independent in April wouldn’t be drawn on the reason why “but let slip it was something about fish.” Kelly was initially replaced by Chad Benson, working on overnights alongside Hanson, before both were replaced by Ian Collins. Others falling by the wayside were Terry Christian and, just 48 hours later, Caesar the Geezer.

By the Autumn 1995 Samantha Meah, Dale Winton, Janet Gershlick and Sue Plumtree had also gone and from October there was a refreshed more news-based line-up that included some old hands: James Whale, Mike Dickin, Jonny Gould, Sandy Warr with First Report, Trevor McDonald with a Sunday morning political show, Simon Bates and Jonathan King. In November Wrighty eventually came on board. Once again the listening figures failed to hit the mark and Bates and King had left the station by the following March.  

There’s a whole stack of Talk Radio UK off-air recordings uploaded onto YouTube by user dpro73 (link here) including a recording of the station launch that’s way longer than the one I made, but nothing from Bates or King and only one instance of Steve Wright so here are three recordings from my own archive.

Firstly from 2 October 1995 it’s Breakfast with Bates with Simon Bates, of course, and discussion about the extra-marital activities of Princess Diana. The news headlines are read by Sandy Warr.

Following Simon that day was Jonathan King complete with his Entertainment USA theme tune.

And finally from 6 January 1996 it’s the Saturday morning Steve Wright’s Talk Show. With Steve is Georgey Spanswick and his old Radio 1 chum Richard Easter. The guests are former Rugby league player Brian Moore, who years later would go on to present on Talk Radio’s successor talksport, Les Dennis, Jon Culshaw and John Carter, best known for Holiday and Wish You Were Here.    

Christmas Countdown – 12 December – Simon Bates

The notion of sending Simon Bates into a war zone is not a new one. Back in his Radio 1 days Simes went off to the Gulf War. So it is perhaps surprising, and quite heartening, for Smooth Radio to spend the time and resources on a week of programmes from Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. It makes fascinating listening.

Four months later it was Bates in the Falklands. Meanwhile this week on Radio 1 Greg James’s show is broadcast live from Afghanistan.
 

Simon Bates_121211

Tomorrow across the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man.

DJ Heaven - Simon Bates

Think of Simon Bates and you’ll probably think of Our Tune and The Golden Hour. They’re a feature of his current show on Smooth just as they were thirty years ago on Radio 1.

Simon has had a varied career that started ‘down under’ back in the 1960s. Here’s his mini-biography taken from the 1980 Radio 1 Diary:

Simon Bates was born in Birmingham in December 1947 and was brought up on his parents’ farm in Shropshire.

After an unsuccessful brush with university, he went to New Zealand where he made his broadcasting debut as ‘Boy’ in a radio serialisation of Tarzan, while earning a living milking cows. He stayed in New Zealand with the NZBC for four years becoming well known for his television work and his commercial radio show.

In 1969 he moved to Australia and spent the next two years with the Australian Broadcasting Commission in Sydney, introducing a weekly television arts programme and migrant community affairs programmes, as well as travelling around the Pacific a good deal.

Simon joined Radio 1 in 1976 and after deputising for holidaying disc jockeys was given his own Sunday morning show in July that year. At the end of the following year he took over the Monday to Friday mid-morning programme from Tony Blackburn and has also presented Sunday afternoon’s chart show since 1978.

Whenever he has the time Simon combines disc jockeying with work as a television announcer. Although he lives in London, he spends as much time as he can on the farm in Shropshire, following his main outside interest – riding.

In fact the biography overlooks the fact that Simon initially joined the BBC as a Radio 4 announcer and newsreader before transferring to Radio 2 in 1972. Here he hosted a range of programmes,such as Late Night Extra, Sweet ‘n’ Swing, Folk 73, Dancing to Midnight, At the Jazz Band Ball, Saturday Night with the BBC Radio Orchestra and, for two years, The Early Show.

Simon’s break on Radio 1 was prompted by Johnnie Walker leaving his lunchtime show and Radio 1 to work in the States. Paul Burnett moved from Sunday mornings to lunchtime and it was Simon that took over Paul’s show that the Radio Times titled All There is to Hear, although Bates seemed to refer to it as The Music Machine in this short clip.

As is well recorded Simon left Radio 1 before he was pushed by Mathew Bannister’s sweeping reforms. Thereafter, stints at Atlantic 252, Liberty, Talk Radio, LBC and a many years at Classic FM followed before he moved back to pop radio earlier this year on Smooth’s Breakfast Show, complete with The Golden Hour and Our Tune.

But back to 1993 and another edition of the BBC2 programme DJ Heaven featuring our Simon. This was broadcast on 6^th November.

Simon maintains his farm interests by visting the Howden
Young Farmers back in 1989.
Goole Times & Chronicle 26 June 1989

More Bates audio at Radio Rewind