BBC Radio 5 Live



BBC Radio 5 Live (also known as just 5 Live) is the BBC's national radio service that specialises in live BBC News, phone-ins, interviews and sports commentaries. It is the principal 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 27 August 1990. It is transmitted via analogue radio in AM on medium wave 693 and 909 kHz and digitally via digital radio, television and via an Internet stream. Due to rights restrictions, coverage of some events (in particular live sport) is not available on-line or is restricted to UK addresses.

The station broadcasts from MediaCityUK in Salford 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. After many arguments, both internal and external, the BBC closed their fifth radio network, BBC Radio 5, and replaced the old service's educational and children's programmes with a new news service, whilst retaining the sports programmes. The new BBC Radio 5 Live began its 24-hour service at 05:00 on Monday 28 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 in Cleveland, 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 2 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.

Broadcast
BBC Radio 5 Live broadcasts in AM on the medium wave frequencies 693 and 909 kHz nationally, with the frequency 990 kHz used at Cardigan Bay; these frequencies had been utilised by BBC Radio 5 and were used by BBC Radio 2 previously. Uniquely to the BBC Radio network, it is the only station that is neither purely digital (such as 1Xtra, Radio 4 Extra and 6 Music) nor broadcast in analogue FM. In addition to the AM output, the station also broadcasts digitally on DAB Digital Radio, and on television through satellite services such as Sky, cable services such as Virgin Media, DTT services such as Freeview and through IPTV. The station also broadcasts programmes live through the BBC Online website and the BBC iPlayer sub-site, which allows replaying programmes up to a week after the original broadcast. The service is also available on the Radioplayer internet site partially run by the BBC. Before the launch of digital broadcasting, BBC Radio 5 Live had broadcast on analogue satellite with near-FM quality.

For many years, the station operated from four floors within the News Centre at BBC Television Centre, because of the close connections between the station and BBC News, and the co-location of BBC Sport. However, as part of the corporation's plan to sell off Television Centre, the decision was made in 2008 to move BBC Radio 5 Live to the new broadcast hub at MediaCityUK. The move itself began in September 2011 and took two months. The new studios occupy a single floor in Quay House, with two studios large enough for several guests and a separate studio for large groups.

Programming
BBC Radio 5 Live's remit includes broadcasting rolling news and transmitting news as it breaks. The BBC's policy for major breaking news events revolves around a priority list. With UK news, the correspondent first records a "generic minute" summary (for use by all stations and channels); the subsequent priority is to report on Radio 5 Live, then the BBC News Channel, and then any other programmes that are on air. For foreign news, first a "generic minute" is recorded, then reports are to World Service radio, then the reporter talks to any other programmes that are on air.

BBC Radio 5 Live broadcasts an extremely wide range of sports and covers all the major sporting events, mostly under its flagship sports banner 5 Live Sport. Whilst football commentaries form the majority of live commentaries during the football season, the range of events covered by the station include:


 * Live Premier League, Football League, FA Cup, Football League Cup matches, SPL, and Scottish Cup matches
 * World Cup
 * Olympic Games
 * All Home Nations International football matches
 * Champions League (with limitations for online broadcast) and UEFA Europa League
 * FIFA Club World Cup (if British side is involved)
 * Men's Golf Majors and the Ryder Cup
 * England rugby union test matches
 * The Autumn Internationals and Six Nations Championship
 * Rugby World Cup
 * Aviva Premiership
 * Super League
 * Challenge Cup
 * Rugby League Four Nations
 * Formula One
 * British Touring Car Championship
 * National Hockey League
 * Stanley Cup Playoffs and Final
 * Elite Ice Hockey League
 * Champions Hockey League
 * IIHF World Championships
 * Grand National
 * Cheltenham Festival, Royal Ascot and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes
 * The Classics, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and the Melbourne Cup
 * Boxing
 * World Athletics Championships, Commonwealth Games, Diamond League Athletics, European Cup, and other athletics meets
 * Wimbledon Tennis Championships
 * London Marathon
 * The Boat Race (audio simulcast of BBC One TV in 2015)
 * National Football League

Weekday programmes

 * Morning Reports, presented by the station's overnight newsreader
 * Wake Up to Money, presented by Adam Parsons and David Jones (Mon-Wed) or Mickey Clark (Thu & Fri)
 * 5 live Breakfast presented by Nicky Campbell and Rachel Burden.
 * 5 live Daily, hosted by Adrian Chiles (Monday and Tuesday) and Emma Barnett (Wednesday-Friday)
 * Afternoon Edition, hosted by Nihal Arthanayake and Sarah Brett
 * Friday Sports Panel (Fri), hosted by Eleanor Oldroyd
 * Kermode and Mayo's Film Review (Fri), with Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode
 * 5 live Drive presented by Tony Livesey and Anna Foster
 * 5 live Sport, presented by Mark Chapman, Mark Pougatch and Eleanor Oldroyd
 * Phil Williams (Monday-Wednesday) or Stephen Nolan (Thursday-Sunday)
 * Up All Night with Rhod Sharp (Tue-Thur) or Dotun Adebayo (Sat-Mon), and a guest presenter on Fri

Weekend programmes

 * Weekend Breakfast, with Chris Warburton and Eleanor Oldroyd (Saturday) or Sam Walker (Sunday)
 * The Danny Baker Show
 * Fighting Talk
 * 5 live Sport, presented by Mark Pougatch (Saturday) and Jonathan Overend (Sunday)
 * Sports Report, presented by Mark Pougatch
 * 606 with Darren Fletcher and Robbie Savage (Saturday) or Kelly Cates and Ian Wright (Sunday)
 * 5 Live Science, with Dr Chris Smith from the Naked Scientists
 * The Non-League Football Show, with Caroline Barker
 * Sportsweek, with Garry Richardson
 * Pienaar's Politics, with John Pienaar
 * Garvey & Allen with Jane Garvey and Peter Allen
 * 5 Live Investigates, with Adrian Goldberg
 * Stephen Nolan (Thursday-Sunday)
 * Up All Night presented by Dotun Adebayo (Fri-Mon)
 * 5 live Hit List presented by Emma Barnett

5 Live Sports Extra
As 5 Live cannot accommodate all of the sports which they have rights to broadcast, some are covered on sister station Sports Extra, including:


 * Cricket World Cup, ICC Champions Trophy, and Twenty20 World Cup
 * England cricket tests and One Day Internationals
 * Friends Provident Trophy semi-finals and final and Twenty20 Cup
 * 'Grand Slam' Tennis tournaments
 * Action from any other competition broadcast on Five Live

Sports Extra typically emphasizes full broadcasts of Premier League and Home Nations football, if games overlap each other. Five Live carries the first-choice match in such cases.

Despite the fact that commercial stations (such as Sky Sports) have acquired the vast majority of sports television broadcasting rights in the UK, the BBC remains dominant in radio sport with BBC Radio 5 Live and its local radio stations. Its main commercial rival for radio sports rights is TalkSPORT.

Awards
In January 2013, BBC Radio Five Live was nominated for the Responsible Media of the Year award at the British Muslim Awards.