2017 in British radio

This is a list of events in British radio during 2017.

List of years in British radio (table)
In British television
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
In British music
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
In British film
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020

Events

January
  • 3 January –
    • Bauer Radio's Cash for Kids appeal raises £15.5 million for charity.[1]
    • Former Free Radio presenter Gemma Hill joins Ed James as co-presenter of Heart Breakfast at Heart West Midlands, replacing Rachel New, who left the station in December 2016.[2]
  • 5 January –
  • 6 January – Bed retailer Dreams signs a long-term sponsorship deal with the Heart network to air features offering listeners advice on how to maximise their sleep.[5]
  • 8 January – Simon Bates confirms he has left BBC Radio Devon after presenting their breakfast show for two years.[6]
  • 9 January – BBC Radio 2 announces changes to its overnight schedule from the end of January. The After Midnight programme, presented by Janice Long and Alex Lester will be axed in favour of repeats of shows such as Sounds of the 60s and Pick of the Pops, while an automated service titled Radio 2 Playlists will air in the 2 am – 5 am slot.[7]
  • 12 January – Talkradio announces the launch of its own version of Woman's Hour–Badass Women's Hour–which will air on Saturday evenings at 8pm from 14 January.[8]
  • 13 January – Channel 5 weather presenter Sian Welby will join Heart to present the weekday evening show from 16 January.[9] A number of other presenters are also subsequently announced, all of whom will be part of Heart's Feel Good Weekend; Annaliese Dayes will present Club Classics, while Anna Johnson and James Stewart will present shows on Sundays.[10]
  • 17 January – Cross Counties Radio announce plans to launch an online radio station for the 9,000 workers based at the Magna Park distribution centre in Lutterworth, Leicestershire.[11]
  • 18 January – Absolute Radio presenters Geoff Lloyd and Annabel Port announce their departure from the station.[12]
  • 19 January – The Armed Forces radio station BFBS announces it will cease broadcasting on the Digital One platform from March because of the cost of transmitting content through DAB.[13]
  • 21 January –
    • The BBC launches an investigation after a Twitter account belonging to BBC Northampton was hacked, and a fake news story posted claiming that US President Donald Trump had been shot.[14]
    • Dermot O'Leary presents his final Saturday afternoon show for BBC Radio 2, having hosted the programme for twelve years.[15]
  • 28–30 January – Absolute Radio 90s is temporarily renamed Absolute Radio Frank to celebrate the 60th birthday of its presenter Frank Skinner.[16]
  • 29 January – Former England captain David Beckham is the castaway on the 75th anniversary edition of BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.[17]
  • 30 January – London Evening Standard editor Sarah Sands is appointed editor of Radio 4's Today programme, replacing Jamie Angus; Sands becomes the second woman to take the role after Jenny Abramsky was appointed to the position in 1986.[18]

February
  • 1 February – Clare Teal presents Desmond Carrington – All Time Great, a special Radio 2 show celebrating the music played by Desmond Carrington during his time with the network.[19] The programme airs on the day that Carrington's death is announced.[20]
  • 25 February – Brian Matthew presents his final edition of Sounds of the 60s for Radio 2, having taken the decision to retire from the weekly show because of ill health.[21]

March
  • 4 March – Tony Blackburn succeeds Brian Matthew as presenter of Radio 2's Sounds of the 60s. The two-hour show also moves to the earlier time of 6 am.
  • 29 March –
  • 31 March – Star Radio is reprieved when UKRD announces that it has sold the station to View TV Group.[24]

April
  • 10 April – BBC Radio 4 controller Gwyneth Williams announces that the arts programme Saturday Review will be axed in the autumn as part of cost-cutting measures; instead Front Row will get a Saturday highlights edition.[25]
  • 28 April – BBC Media editor Amol Rajan will succeed Steve Hewlett as presenter of Radio 4's The Media Show following Hewlett's death in February.[26]

May
  • 22 May – A light-hearted quiz concerning Moors murderer Ian Brady which appeared on Nathan Turvey's BBC Radio Leeds breakfast show the previous day is described by the BBC as "unacceptable".[27]
  • 26 May – London-based LBC announces that Katie Hopkins, who had presented a Sunday morning programme since April 2016, will leave the station immediately following a post she made on Twitter in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing in which she talked of the need for a "final solution".[28]

June
  • 9 June – Following a three-week trial at Warwick Crown Court, former BBC radio presenters Tony Wadsworth and Julie Mayer are convicted of indecently assaulting under-age boys during the 1990s, and each jailed for five years.[29]
  • 14 June – BBC Radio 4 announces that Malawian comedian and Britain's Got Talent finalist Daliso Chaponda will have his own show on the network, titled Daliso Chaponda: Citizen of Nowhere.[30]
  • 19 June – Launch of Brexitcast, a BBC podcast looking at Brexit-related issues. It is also aired by BBC Radio 5 Live.[31][32]

July
  • 5 July – Jazz FM confirms its presenter Peter Young, known as PY to listeners, has stepped down from his presenting role after 27 years at the station due to ill health. The station also announces a new schedule beginning on 8 July, which will see three new presenters–Tony Minvielle, Tim Garcia and Anne Frankenstein–join its weekend lineup.[33]
  • 24 July – The BBC announces a new music festival for 2018, which it is hoped will fill the gap left by Glastonbury, which is taking a year off. The Biggest Weekend will run from 25 to 28 May, and take place at four venues, one in each of the Home Countries. Coverage will be shown on BBC radio and television.[34]
  • 27 July – The BBC reverses its decision to axe the Radio 4 arts programme Saturday Review.[35]

August
  • 1 August – Star Radio North East is rebranded as Rathergood Radio.[36]
  • 10 August – Radio 4 defends its decision to include an interview with Nigel Lawson in a segment of The Today Programme about climate change after the Green Party accused the former Chancellor of making "false claims" on the topic. Radio 4 says it has a duty to represent all sides of the climate change debate.[37]
  • 13–14 August – Pirate BBC Essex broadcasts for the fourth and presumably final time to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Marine Offences Act.
  • 17 August – Radio 4 announces it has commissioned a pilot of Where's The F In News, a topical radio panel show whose guests will mostly be women. The programme will be written and presented by Jo Bunting, producer of Have I Got News for You.[38]
  • 18 August – Four new presenters—Abbie McCarthy, Katie Thistleton, Jordan North and Yasser—will make their debut on BBC Radio 1, standing in on Matt Edmondson's weekend show throughout September while he is away filming for television.[39]
  • 30 August – BBC Radio 3 announces plans to broadcast a one-off, six-hour programme featuring the voices of people living with dementia, which will air overnight on 15 October.[40]

September
  • 1 September – The Bauer City 3 network is disbanded, and The Hits as a single national service returns to DAB in its place.[41]
  • 9 September – The concert held to reopen Manchester Arena following June's bombing is broadcast live on BBC Radio Manchester, Key 103 and Radio X.[42]
  • 18 September – The fourth roll-out of new transmitters of the BBC National DAB multiplex is completed. The programme, which had run for the past two years, increased the reach from 93% to more than 97% of the UK’s population and saw the switching on of 164 new transmitters. [43]
  • 26 September – A poll of Radio Times readers names Sir Terry Wogan the greatest broadcaster of the last 50 years.[44]
  • 30 September – 50th anniversary of the launch of BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2, which began broadcasting on 30 September 1967.[45] To celebrate the occasion, the two stations air a joint 90-minute show presented by Nick Grimshaw and Tony Blackburn, while Radio 1 launches a special pop up vintage station featuring 50 hours of programming from their archives.[46]

October
  • 1 October – Smooth Radio hires former Magic presenter Gary Vincent to present its evening programme. He succeeds Chris Skinner from 2 October.[47]
  • 6 October – Prince Harry has been invited to guest edit an edition of The Today Programme, its editor, Sarah Sands confirms. The Prince is one of several guest editors lined up to edit the programme over the Christmas 2017 period.[48]
  • 12 October – BBC Radio 4 confirms that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is to return for a new series, with the original cast reuniting to record a dramatisation of Eoin Colfer's And Another Thing..., a continuation novel commissioned by the Estate of Douglas Adams.[49]
  • 22 October – Reality television starlet Gemma Collins suffers a near fatal fall after plunging through a trapdoor while presenting an award at the Radio 1 Teen Awards, held at Wembley Stadium.[50][51]
  • 23 October – Julia Hartley-Brewer, a presenter on talkRADIO, faces criticism after posting a joke on Twitter about an armed siege. Hartley-Brewer posted about the siege at a bowling alley in Nuneaton, Warwickshire on 22 October, saying that she would "take hostages too" if she was stuck at the venue on a Sunday evening.[52]
  • 26 October – Figures indicate that the Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Nick Grimshaw recorded its lowest listener audience in the third quarter of 2017, with 4.93 million weekly listeners between July and September, compared to 5.5 million in the previous quarter.[53]

November
  • 9 November – BBC Director General Tony Hall says the BBC will not go ahead with a planned £10million in cuts to local radio.[54]
  • 19 November – It is reported that BBC Radio Wales presenter Aled Jones has voluntarily agreed not to appear on the BBC while the broadcaster holds an investigation into allegations he sent inappropriate messages to a woman more than a decade ago, it is reported. Jones apologises for any upset caused by his behaviour, which he says can be "occasionally juvenile".[55] In January 2018, the BBC confirms the presenter, last heard on air in October, will return to his presenting roles.[56]
  • 20 November – Global announces that it has purchased Cumbrian stations The Bay and Lakeland Radio from CN Group.[57]
  • 23 November – Guest presenters of BBC Radio 4's Today programme over the Christmas period will include Henry, Prince of Wales and a robot, it is confirmed.[58]
  • 26 November – Clare Balding steps down as presenter of BBC Radio 2's Good Morning Sunday, with the day's edition being her final programme. Angie Greaves will assume the presenting role in the short term.[59]

December
  • 18 December – Ofcom launches an investigation into impartiality over two appearances by climate change denier Nigel Lawson on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the first major Ofcom investigation into the BBC since taking over responsibility for regulation of the BBC earlier in the year. The investigation concerns appearances made by Lawson on the programme in 2014, and August 2017.[60]
  • 20 December –
    • BBC Radio 2 announces plans to extend its religion-themed magazine programme Good Morning Sunday to three hours, while the long-running The Sunday Hour will end after more than seven decades. The new programme, which begins on 4 February 2018, will air from 6.00am to 9.00am, and be presented by Kate Bottley and Jason Mohammad.[61]
    • Global Radio announce details of the voting categories for its inaugural awards ceremony, the Global Awards to be held at London's Hammersmith Eventim Apollo on 1 March 2018. The Awards will be reflective of the music, programmes and news aired on its network of stations.[62][63]
  • 22 December – The former pirate station Radio Caroline begins broadcasting on 648kHz medium wave, having been granted a licence to do so by Ofcom. The frequency was formerly used by the BBC World Service.[64]
  • 27 December – Prince Harry guest edits the Today programme, on which is included guest interviews with former US President Barack Obama and Prince Charles.[65]

Station debuts

Programme debuts

Continuing programmes

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

Ending this year

Deaths

References
  1. "£15.5m raised for children in poverty by Bauer". Radio Today. 3 January 2017. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  2. "New Heart breakfast DJ to host alongside Ed James revealed". Birmingham Mail. Trinity Mirror. 3 January 2017. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  3. Walker, Peter (5 January 2017). "Nigel Farage to host LBC radio talkshow". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  4. "Smooth Radio North East in social media fail – RadioToday". radiotoday.co.uk. Retrieved 10 May 2018. The update said “I’m fuc*ed mate. No more drinks for me”.
  5. Farley, Paul (6 January 2017). "Dreams signs up for Heart radio campaign". Furniture News Magazine. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  6. Smith, Colleen (8 January 2017). "Shock as Simon Bates quits BBC Radio Devon breakfast show". Torquay Herald Express. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  7. Carnie, Lewis (9 January 2017). "Radio 2 announces overnight schedule changes". BBC Media Centre. BBC. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  8. "talkRADIO starts its very own Woman's Hour". Radio Today. 12 January 2017. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  9. Martin, Roy (13 January 2017). "TV host Sian Welby joins Heart for evenings". Radio Today. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  10. Martin, Roy (17 January 2017). "New presenters for Heart's Feel Good Weekend". Radio Today. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  11. "Online radio station planned for Magna Park". Radio Today. 17 January 2017. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  12. Martin, Roy (18 January 2017). "Geoff Lloyd and Annabel Port to leave Absolute Radio". Radio Today. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  13. Martin, Roy (19 January 2017). "BFBS to end national DAB radio transmissions". Radio Today. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  14. "BBC Northampton 'Trump shot' tweet blamed on hacker". BBC News. BBC. 21 January 2017. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  15. "Dermot O'Leary hosts his last Radio 2 afternoon show". Radio Today. 22 January 2017. Retrieved 23 January 2017.
  16. Martin, Roy (18 January 2017). "Frank Skinner to get his own radio station". Radio Today. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  17. "Desert Island Discs at 75: David Beckham is anniversary show castaway". BBC News. BBC. 20 January 2017. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  18. "Evening Standard editor Sarah Sands moves to Today programme". BBC News. BBC. 30 January 2017. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
  19. Martin, Roy (17 January 2017). "Radio 2 tribute planned for Desmond Carrington". Radio Today. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  20. "Radio 2 presenter Desmond Carrington dies, aged 90". BBC News. BBC. 1 February 2017. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  21. "Sounds of the 60s: Brian Matthew 'saddened' to leave show after 27 years". BBC News. Bbc.co.uk. 25 February 2017. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
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  23. "Star Radio North East Separation". Retrieved 2017-04-04.
  24. "Star Radio North East Saved from Closure". Retrieved 2017-03-31.
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  28. "Katie Hopkins to leave LBC 'immediately'". BBC News. 26 May 2017.
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  30. "Britain's Got Talent comedian Daliso Chaponda lands own Radio 4 show". BBC News. BBC. 14 June 2017. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  31. "5 Live's Brexitcast wins British Podcast Awards Listeners Choice". Retrieved 13 June 2019.
  32. "BBC Radio 5 live – Brexitcast, Electioncast is dead. Long live Brexitcast!". BBC. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
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  34. "Glastonbury gap year to be filled by new BBC Music festival". BBC News. BBC. 24 July 2017. Retrieved 25 July 2017.
  35. "Reprieve for Radio 4's Saturday Review". BBC News. BBC. 27 July 2017. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  36. "Star North East to rebrand as Rathergood Radio".
  37. "BBC defends Lawson climate change interview". 10 August 2017. Retrieved 26 October 2017 – via www.bbc.co.uk.
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  40. Savage, Mark (30 August 2017). "Dementia patients to take over Radio 3". Retrieved 26 October 2017 – via www.bbc.co.uk.
  41. "The Hits to replace Bauer's City 3 network", RadioToday, 2017-08-29
  42. "Manchester Arena: Radio stations to broadcast reopening concert". BBC News. BBC. 5 September 2017. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
  43. Arqiva confirms BBC DAB rollout complete
  44. "Sir Terry Wogan named greatest BBC radio presenter". BBC News. BBC. 26 September 2017. Retrieved 26 September 2017.
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  47. "Gary Vincent joins Smooth Radio for evenings – RadioToday". radiotoday.co.uk. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
  48. Ruddick, Graham (6 October 2017). "Prince Harry to guest edit Radio 4's Today programme". Retrieved 26 October 2017 – via www.theguardian.com.
  49. "Hitchhiker's Guide returns to Radio 4". 12 October 2017. Retrieved 26 October 2017 – via www.bbc.co.uk.
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  51. "Gemma Collins nearly 'crushed' Love Island stars in near fatal fall". Retrieved 26 October 2017.
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  64. "'Original' pirate radio station returns". BBC News. BBC. 21 December 2017. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  65. "Prince Harry to 'shine spotlight' on issues". BBC News. BBC. 27 December 2017. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  66. Barker, Dennis (2 February 2017). "Desmond Carrington obituary". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  67. "Howard Philpott, Radio 4 newsreader, dies aged 63". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. 5 February 2017. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
  68. "The Archers actor Sara Coward dies at 69". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. 13 February 2017. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  69. "Steve Hewlett: Radio 4 presenter dies at the age of 58". BBC News. BBC. 20 February 2017. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
  70. "Former This Morning presenter Stephen Rhodes dies from motor neurone disease". BBC News. BBC. 22 February 2017. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  71. "Obituary: Brian Matthew". BBC News. 2017-04-08. Retrieved 2017-04-08.
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