Radio 2 Information Service 26 August 1990

The day before the launch of BBC Radio 5 what was Radio 2 old MW service was running an information service advising its listeners to retune to FM as well as providing trails for the new station.

[@northyorkshirechris5735]

I hadn’t realised that Radio 5 began life with some fairly varied programming - not only news and sport, but education, history, children’s and a radio thriller as well.

[@LateNiteRadio]

Love the slogan....."It's FM for the 90's!!".

[@dvidclapperton]

On medium wave (as the BBC calls it) you couldn't listen to the last 15 minutes of the John Dunn show as made way for a sports bulletin at 6.45pm. To hear the whole show you had to be tuned in to FM. In many ways FM was always best for radio 2. There was no sport on FM apart from the hourly sports desks and the late five-to-ten bulletin. On medium wave if you hated sport you had to put up with Sport on 2 every Saturday, Sunday sport every Sunday from April to September, midweek soccer specials, Olympic games and commonwealth games, 2 weeks of Wimbledon, Open golf championships, midweek horse racing meetings all instead of the music which was all on FM. Plus the reception for the music was terrible on medium wave.

[@chrishulse5305]

My late nan was furious after hearing that announcement about needing a new radio to continue listening to R2, her radiogram had VHF so i simply retuned and she was very happy!

[@davidantoine1603]

Chris Hulse funny 😂

[@dvidclapperton]

Getting furious over nothing.

[@christopherhulse8385]

@@dvidclapperton not exactly in her mind, she paid quite a lot of money around 15 years previously for the radiogram which was a quality Ferguson make, it was a lack of understanding that caused the situation with her, as it did with other people I'm sure.

[@RWL2012]

he could've said "if your radio doesn't have FM, VHF or U"

[@stephenemmett9753]

Radio 1's Top 40 show aired on Radio 2's FM frequencies (88-91 FM) for the very last time a few months prior to this on March 25th, 1990.

[@coolasmud]

Radio 2 seems to have morphed into old Radio 1 these days.

[@dvidclapperton]

Right now If you played all the shows that were on Radio 1 from 1967 to 1990 they would sound even more of a classic hits station than Radio 2 does today.

[@dvidclapperton]

You never got the whole BBC2 music schedule on 909 and 693 medium wave before they closed down anyway. Yet people who could make a simple switch to FM to listen to the full music schedule were up in arms. It took nothing to operate your radio yet apparently it was an almighty complex thing for far too many to do. At 6.45pm every evening radio 2 medium wave, John Dunn's early evening show gave way to a sports desk so that was 15 minutes of music less every night on medium wave than there was on FM. So all the complaints were baseless. As soon as they finally switched to FM, they got the full show they had been missing for the many years they had their radios stuck permanently to 909 or 693 medium wave. Sport on 2, Sunday Sport, midweek soccer specials, olympic games saw the music on FM only too. Yet too many were so stuck in their medium wave ways way back then to realise just how much of the music schedule on medium wave gave way to sport.

[@DoctorLemon]

It must have been a relief to find the music you've wanting to hear on FM after it being interrupted a lot on MW. I can only imagine how angry the few elderly people who had old MW-only radios were lol, just like in 1985 when 405-line TV closed for good.

[@scottpeacock5492]

Medium Wave or AM Radio is on it way out, within the next few years BBC Radio 5 live on 909/693 will cease to exist as more and more people are switching over to their digital devices such online or on DAB+ Audiences are down to just 2% on AM and there are angry folks who are still stuck in their medium wave ways.

[@northyorkshirechris5735]

@@scottpeacock5492Yes and no. MW radio is gradually dying off for analogue broadcasting with transmitters gradually being switched off (Absolute Radio being the latest to do so in January 2023), but the BBC (and others) are involved in the international Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) project which aims to digitise both MW and SW. So there may be life in those frequencies yet.

[@paulsimpson6899]

Was this really recorded off AM? Seems very clear.

[@RandomRadioJottings]

Yes, recorded by me on AM

[@smogmonster1876]

Paul Simpson Probably the recorder lives very close to the transmitter.

[@anthonyperkins7556]

@@smogmonster1876 or in a strong signal area for R2 Medium Wave

[@christopherhulse8385]

AM with a good quality receiver was capable of good reproduction (mono of course!)

[@SirKenchalot]

Ah Radio 5 - move all your unpopular shows from Radios 1-4 on to one network and then cancel them.

[@tenacious3911]

I suspect before Radio 2 was removed from the mediumwave frequencies its FM frequencies had a listenership in the triple digits, the British public were remarkably reluctant to use FM even when they owned radio sets with an FM band. A more listener-friendly solution would have been to leave Radio 2 on 693/909 and put Radio 5 on the FM network, then subsequently keep the old format Radio 5 and put BBC Radio News & Sport on the old Radio 3 frequency.

[@arthurvasey]

Tenacious Barlow But then you would not have been able to hear it in stereo - medium wave has never been able to broadcast anything in stereo!

[@tenacious3911]

AM Stereo does exist! There are infact several different systems en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AM_stereo

[@arthurvasey]

Tenacious Barlow I don't dispute its existence - but it has never been used on a grand scale, A F A I K - AM is practically redundant, these days, for anything but speech - Absolute Radio and the AM services of local commercial stations excluded - but hardly anyone uses it, these days!

[@tenacious3911]

I'd argue the decline of AM was due to various broadcaster policies rather than a conscious choice by listeners, most Radio 3 listeners went to FM in 1978 because the BBC reassigned the excellent 648 frequency for World Service transmissions, displacing Radio 3 onto the terrible 1215 network (1215 is slightly better now the notorious poorly screened Albanian station has closed). And I do freely admit I'm slightly biased as I wish I could pick up something other than Elvis Costello or the Shipping Forecast on my Bush DAC90A.

[@dvidclapperton]

But not only did you never get the full 24/7/365 music schedule on 909 and 693 medium wave that you got on 88 to 90.2 FM, the same music sounded far inferior on medium wave compared to on FM. And not just because it was mono on medium wave vs stereo on FM.

[@hairynews8348]

What ever happened to Mark Curry??

[@1Soniccool]

Brits: HOW ABOUT RADIO 4?!

[@theweathercat2002]

BBC: Radio 4 is on both longwave and FM

[@adamsblog2161]

0:10 fm only plz