Radio 1 Launch CSP: blog tasks


Historical, social and cultural context

BBC Radio Home, BBC Radio Light and BBC Third was all offered to the public, by BBC, before 1967.The BBC reorganised and renamed their radio channels. For example he Light Programme was split into two. Radio 1 was for "popular" music, whereas Radio 2 was for "easy listening".

Pirate radio or a pirate radio station is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license. To avoid breaking the law, hosts of pirate radio would sail out of the UK's national boundary. Pirate radio was very popular to teens as the stations played music that was enjoyed by them. This was later stopped as the UK finally outlawed pirate radio stations. 

The hosts of pirate radio soon moved over to Radio 1, many fans were not happy with this, as Radio 1 was seen as "uncool".  However, Radio 1 began to play music targeted at teens which attracted young audiences. The first host of Radio 1 was a previous host on pirate radio, this upset a few traditional Radio 1 hosts. 

'Needle Time' meant they could only play five hours of music per day. Pirate Radio did not have these restrictions. This was a problem for BBC Radio because they wasn't allowed to provide music for 24hrs like the Pirate radio stations

BBC Radio 1 offered different content to previous BBC Radio Stations by gaining the target audience of young people and supplying them with popular and easy listening music. This was an attempt to copy Pirate radio stations as they were popular.

The first presenter of BBC Radio 1 was Tony Blackburn. Audience loved him because of his funny commentary and witty jokes. Tony took certain aspects from pirate radio to engage with listeners, such as commentary over music. 

Audience and industry

The target audience for BBC Radio 1 in 1967 was young adults and teens (16 - 28yrs)

Radio 1 struggled to attract the younger audience as the radio tended to provide things for younger audiences. The radio stations catered more to older audiences. 

• entertainment/diversion - through music and gossip with celebs.
• information/surveillance - about the world around them, such as weather and news updates 
• personal relationships - through the DJ, the audiences can engage with the DJ

BBC is funded by people that pay the licence fee 

The preferred reading would've been that the new station was cool and worth the listen for younger audiences.The oppositional reading would've been that the show was trying to be something it wasn't, and that the station was too conservative and old-fashioned to efficiently keep up with trends and changes in popular music.