BBC Radio 5

BBC Radio 5 Live (also known as just 5 Live) is the BBC's national radio service that broadcasts mainly news, sport, discussion, interviews and phone-ins. It is the principal BBC radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcasting virtually all major sports events staged in the UK or involving British competitors.

Radio 5 Live was launched in March 1994 as a repositioning of the original Radio 5, which was launched on 27th August 1990. It is transmitted via analogue radio in AM on medium wave 693 and 909 kHz and digitally via digital radio, television and on the BBC Sounds service. Due to rights restrictions, coverage of some events (in particular live sport) is not available online or is restricted to UK addresses.

The station broadcasts from MediaCityUK in Salford in Greater Manchester and is a department of the BBC North division.

History

The success of Radio 4 News FM during the first Gulf War (1991) led the BBC to propose the launch a rolling-news service. Initially the plan was to broadcast a rolling news service on BBC Radio 4's long wave frequency but this was met with considerable opposition, both internally and externally, so the BBC decided to close BBC Radio 5 and replace the old service's educational and children's programmes with a new news service, whilst retaining the sports programmes. BBC Radio 5 Live began its 24-hour service at 5 am on Monday 28th March 1994. The first voice on air, Jane Garvey, later went on to co-present the breakfast and drive-time shows with Peter Allen. The Times described the launch as "slipp[ing] smoothly and confidently into a routine of informative banter" and The Scotsman as "professionalism at its slickest".

The news of the first day was dominated by the fatal stabbing at Hall Garth School near Middlesbrough, the first of many major incidents which the network covered live as they unfolded.

The tone of the channel, engaging and more relaxed than contemporary BBC output, was the key to the channel's success and set the model for other BBC News services later in the decade. The first audiences were some four million, with a record audience of six and a quarter million. Among the key editorial staff involved in the design of programme formats and recruitment of staff for the new station were Sara Nathan, later editor of Channel 4 News, and Tim Luckhurst, later editor of The Scotsman newspaper and currently Professor of Journalism at the University of Kent.

In 2000, the station was rebranded with a new logo which would remain with the station for another seven years. In addition, on 2nd February 2002 a companion station, BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, was launched as a digital-only service to complement the range of sport and to avoid clashes; previously BBC Local Radio stations and the long-wave frequency of BBC Radio 4 were used. Throughout this period, Five Live gained several awards including five Sony Awards in 2005; the single gold award was for its coverage of the 2004 Asian tsunami in the News Story Award category alongside another four silver awards and six nominations. The station also began to further its boundaries with the publication of the Radio Five Live Sporting Yearbook. In August 2007, BBC Radio 5 Live was given a new logo in line with the rest of the BBC Radio network, and a new background design featuring diagonal parallel lines.

In 2008, the BBC announced that the station would move to MediaCityUK in Salford.

In 2017/18, it was noted the station not only remained as having the fourth highest cost-per-user of all the BBC radio output, but whose costs also increased – rising from 2.3p per hour the previous year to 2.5p per hour, therefore equal to 1Xtra. The audience Appreciation Index figure did not increase, remaining at 79.9; and the average length of time spent on the channel fell from 06:41 to 06:34 – the fourth lowest fall of all of the BBC's radio stations.