1 January – London "pirate" radio presenter Sammy Jacob, known as DJ Sammy Jay, sets up part-time "pirate" indie music station Q102,[1] predecessor of Radio X.
15 January – Pick of the Pops is revived by BBC Radio 1. The show takes on a new classic hits format and features three past charts from three different decades each week. Alan Freeman returns to Radio 1 to present the programme.
February
No events.
March
10 March – Les Ross presents the BRMB breakfast show for the final time ahead of his move to BRMB's forthcoming classic hits service Xtra AM. He had presented the programme for thirteen years.
April
1 April – BBC Radio 1 starts broadcasting slightly earlier each morning and is now on air between 5am and 2am seven days a week.
May
May
The BBC Night Network is launched on the BBC's six local radio stations in Yorkshire and north east England. It provides all six stations with a daily evening service, thereby keeping the stations on air with regional programming until midnight. All local evening programming – mainly local sport and programming for ethnic minorities – is broadcast as an opt-out but is aired only on the station's AM frequencies.
3 July – Simon Bates and producer Jonathan Ruffle set off on an 80-day circumnavigation of the world to raise money for Oxfam. Their progress is charted on BBC Radio 1 in a broadcast each weekday morning.[4]
4 July – A new transmitter for DevonAir is switched on allowing the station to expand its transmission area to East Devon, West Dorset and South Somerset. The relay broadcasts under the name of South West 103.
August
19 August – United Kingdom and Netherlands radio regulatory authorities conduct an armed raid on offshore pirate radio station Radio Caroline in which equipment is disabled or confiscated,[5] taking it off the air until 1 October.
September
1 September – The Ireland-based long wave station Atlantic 252 is launched. Operated by RTÉ it broadcasts to both Ireland and the United Kingdom. The first presenter to be heard is Gary King who announces at 8am: "Mine is the first voice you will ever hear on Atlantic 252." The station broadcasts only during the day – between 6am and 7pm – and at closedown invites listeners to tune in to Radio Luxembourg.
October
1 October – BBC Radio 2 begins a series of Sunday afternoon performances of works by Gilbert and Sullivan. The 12-week series, which runs until Christmas, replaces the station’s usual Sunday afternoon schedule.[6]
2 October – LBC is replaced on FM by news and comment station LBC Crown FM.
19 October – Home Secretary Douglas Hurd issues a notice under clause 13(4) of the BBC Licence and Agreement to the BBC and under section 29(3) of the Broadcasting Act 1981 to the IBA prohibiting the broadcast of direct statements by representatives or supporters of 11 Irish political and military organisations.[7][8] The prohibition lasts until 1994 and denies the UK news media the right to broadcast the voices, though not the words, of all Irish republican and Loyalist paramilitaries. The restrictions, targeted primarily at Sinn Féin, means that actors are used to speak the words of any representative interviewed for radio and television.[9]
13 November – London Greek Radio and WNK become the first stations in the UK to share a frequency. They alternate every four hours.[10][11]
December
19 December – BBC Radio 1 starts transmitting on 98.8 MHz across the whole of London and south-east England from Wrotham, replacing the temporary London transmitter from Crystal Palace which broadcast on 104.8 MHz. The BBC Radio 1 network also expanded to East Anglia[12] and the Cardigan Bay area.
30 December – BBC Radio 1 uses BBC Radio 2's shared FM frequencies on a Saturday afternoon for the final time.
Unknown
City Talk 1548 AM in Liverpool becomes the UK's first all-talk radio station outside of London.[13] The station broadcasts as an opt-out between the hours of 0700 and 1900 on weekdays, sharing content with Radio City's FM service outside these times. This approach differs from that taken by many other stations, which have begun launching "oldies" format stations on their former AM frequencies.
Radio Luxembourg launches a daytime schedule in English for the first time, the first since the early 1950s. It broadcasts the new 24-hour stereo schedule on the recently launched Astra1A satellite to supplement the 208 analogue night-time service.
Southern Sound's broadcast area is expanded when it obtained the licence for Eastbourne and Hastings in East Sussex on 97.5MHz.
WM Heartlands launches as a mid-morning experimental opt-out from BBC Radio WM. It serves the 'Heartlands' area of East Birmingham using the station's 1458MW frequency.[14]
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